Lets get Lechmere off the hook!

[The Baron]

The Birmingham Post - Tuesday, September 04, 1888

“He left his home at half-past three on Friday morning, and passed through Brady Street and Buck's Row. When he got near the gateway of the wool warehouse in Buck's Row, at about a quarter to four, he saw the figure of a woman on the opposite side of the road.”


I swear, I’m talking about one suspect, and the lot are busy chasing some random guy who probably couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces, let alone commit a murder...

Lechmere didn’t say he left his house around 3:30 AM, or maybe 3:30, or close to 3:30, or ‘give or take a few minutes.’ NO, NO, NO, Lechmere explicitly said he LEFT HIS HOUSE AT 3:30 AM. Not 3:29, not 3:31, but 3:30. 3:30. He didn’t say “well, it could’ve been 3:20 or 4:00” he said it was 3:30. Not ‘approximately 3:30,’ not ‘probably around 3:30,’ but EXACTLY 3:30. Like it’s the most precise thing in the world. It’s like Lechmere had a built in GPS that beeped at him and said, ‘Hey, it’s 3:30 AM, time to leave!’ But sure, let’s ignore that and pretend that doesn’t matter.

After he leaves his house AT 3:30, he strolls through Brady Street and Bucks Row, and by 3:45, he sees the woman by the wool warehouse. And what do we have here? We’ve got an 8-MINUTE GAP. 8 WHOLE MINUTES. Unaccounted for.

You know what you can do in 8 minutes? You can rob a bank, you can take a nap, you can boil an egg. Eight minutes of complete radio silence. Eight minutes of what exactly? Staring at the stars? Doing a warm up lap? Learning to juggle? Eight minutes, just enough time to kill someone, But no, no, no, let’s all close our eyes and pretend those eight minutes don’t exist. Let’s just ignore that Lechmere’s exact words were that he left his house at 3:30. Like it’s some kind of myth or fairy tale. Maybe we’ll say Bigfoot did it instead! Or maybe Jack the Ripper was just a figment of our imagination, and the murder was an accident caused by time traveling pigeons. I mean, we’re clearly not interested in facts here.

3:30. Did you get that? 3:30 AM. Lechmere explicitly said it. 3:30. It’s so simple, anyone can understand it. 3:30. Not ‘around 3:30’, not ‘sort of 3:30,’ but precisely 3:30. Pretending that doesn’t matter is willfully ignoring the facts staring you in the face. 3:30. He left at 3:30. Do I need to say it again? Lechmere left at 3:30. Not 3:29. Not 3:31. He didn’t say, ‘Maybe 3:30-ish.’ He said 3:30. Exactly 3:30. That’s not hard to comprehend. If you can’t get that then I don’t know what to tell you. But feel free to keep pretending it was Bigfoot, because that’ll get us real far.



The Baron

[Kattrup]

When John Davis discovered the body, the door was open, so no, it wasn't self closing.

Actually, it was.
It was the door to the street that was open, which was not unusual (but of course points to someone leaving in a hurry)

John Richardson at the inquest:
When I had cut the piece of leather off my boot I tied my boot up and went out of the house to the market. I did not close the back door ; it closes itself. I closed the front door.

[JeffHamm]

I'm pretty sure that if there were such a newspaper article, we would have heard about it from Ed and Christer.



When John Davis discovered the body, the door was open, so no, it wasn't self closing.

Hi Lewis C,

John Davis states at the inquest that the back door was closed but the front door to the street was wide open. Here's the portion from the inquest that covers this:

[Coroner] When you went into the yard on Saturday morning was the yard door open or shut? - I found it shut. I cannot say whether it was latched - I cannot remember. I have been too much upset. The front street door was wide open and thrown against the wall. I was not surprised to find the front door open, as it was not unusual. I opened the back door, and stood in the entrance.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

What’s going on?

[Lewis C]

Some belters from YouTube land today... this is what 'we' are up against...

Does anyone have the newspaper article this chap is referring too? I've read all the newspapers I could on Cross and never seen one where he spoke to a reporter on the night of the double event saying he was at his mam's. Hope there is because that would be another example of him using the name Cross...

I'm pretty sure that if there were such a newspaper article, we would have heard about it from Ed and Christer.

It appears from the photos the door is rather not self closing and how on earth anyone sitting on those steps could not see a dead mutilated woman right there in the morning light is beyond me.

When John Davis discovered the body, the door was open, so no, it wasn't self closing.

[Geddy2112]

Some belters from YouTube land today... this is what 'we' are up against...

do you know on the night of the double murder he was interviewed by a news paper and gace his name az cross to the reporter he was right there yet again when the first body was discovered . his excuse was he was there visiting his mother who lived just round the corner. He did it

Does anyone have the newspaper article this chap is referring too? I've read all the newspapers I could on Cross and never seen one where he spoke to a reporter on the night of the double event saying he was at his mam's. Hope there is because that would be another example of him using the name Cross...

He didn't go out there to check, and the door blade would have obscured Chapmans body.

Even though it's some 7 rows of bricks off the ground, imperial bricks were on average 70mm or 2.75 inches, so poor Annie's head would have had to be at least 19.3 inches high/wide to hit the bottom of the door. When I tried to explain this I got...

Of course the door blade would have obscured Chapman if Richardson was standing up and looking towards the cellar. Undoubtedly. Even if he was sitting on a step cutting leather from his boot it still would have. The door was spring self closing. You cannot sit directly facing outwards on a step cutting leather when there is a spring self closing door. You'd have to sit at an angle, likely on the corner area of the step, again facing towards the cellar. Richardson wouldn't have been able to see Chapman body from that position either, with the door blade in the way.

It appears from the photos the door is rather not self closing and how on earth anyone sitting on those steps could not see a dead mutilated woman right there in the morning light is beyond me.

In my view, Lechmere is the best suspect and in fact the only suspect who can actually be placed at any of the crime scenes by someone else, as he was lingering alone and acting suspiciously right next to the body of Polly Nichols at or very very close to the time of death.

The above 'lingering and acting suspiciously' has been repeated at least a dozen times and every time I ask the fella who saw him lingering and acting suspiciously or where it is written in any testimonies I get nothing in reply, funny that.

YouTube land, it's a chuckle a minute in the comments section...

[Fiver]

A Tale of Two Mice

And with that, Gouda was left alone to finish his cheese. He savored each bite, glancing around with a satisfied smirk. "Running... what a rookie move," he chuckled to himself, nibbling away in peaceful delight.

The Baron

"It was quite possible for anybody to have escaped through Brady-street or into Whitechapel-road, or through a passage in Queen's-buildings.' - PC Neil, Cambridge Evening News - Mon, Sep 03, 1888

[Fiver]

Let's be fair here, the murder probably happened around 3:30am when mumblings was heard, a train was passing and it spooked the real killer. He was long gone before Cross got there about 3:40 am.
Common sense seems to be rare in some quarters.

3:30am is the most likely time, but all we can say for certain is that Nichols was murdered some time between about 3:15am (the last time PC Neil passed through Buck's Row) and about 3:40am when Cross and Paul found her.

[Geddy2112]

take it to creative writing section

I'm really struggling to understand what The Baron is trying to achieve here or if he has been hacked aby an A.I. Bot...

[Abby Normal]

A Life Unseen

The air tastes different now, thick, almost suffocating. He walks, but he doesn’t really feel the ground beneath his boots anymore. It’s as though the world itself has become a blur, each step melding with the next, each hour stretching into infinity. He should feel something, shouldn’t he? A weight, a sense of loss, something. But he doesn’t. Not anymore.
It happened. He knows it happened. He saw it. That boy, his body crumpling beneath the cart. He remembers it, but somehow it’s like it happened to someone else. Not him. Not the man who was there. It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so violent, so final, could slip away from him so easily.
He’s walked through worse in his life. So many faces, so many days, so many moments lost in the ebb of time. What’s one more death, really? What’s one more body falling in a world already so filled with them? At first, there’s a kind of shock, of course. He’s not supposed to feel indifferent to death, is he? But it settles. It fades into the background like everything else. And when the world won’t even give him the satisfaction of recognition, well, what’s left?
He felt... nothing.
Not in the way they said he should, at least. There was no horror, no tears, no frantic search for answers. It just was. And after it happened, there was only silence. A deafening, empty silence, where the world continued to turn, and he was left behind, still walking, still breathing.
Was it really so bad?
The thing about death... is that it’s so quiet, so final. And yet, there’s this strange peace in it. The boy is gone. That moment is gone. It doesn’t change anything. He keeps walking, the cart still moving, the work still waiting. He doesn’t stop. He can’t. The world needs him to keep moving, and so he does.
But something... shifted, didn’t it? That quiet little fracture in his mind, barely noticeable at first. It grows. Slowly. And he doesn’t even see it happening. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to look at it.
But the more he pushed it down, the more he hid it, the clearer it became. The world? It doesn’t care. The world doesn’t notice what happens to the ones who fall, the ones who get caught. The boy... he fell, and no one cared. Not really. Not after the news had gone cold, not after the blame had been settled, not after the accident had been tucked away neatly into the shadows of the city’s memory.
And he? He was still here. No one even knew he existed, except for his own hollow reflection. The same empty stare he sees every day, walking through the fog.
There’s something strange about being alone with yourself. You start to question. You start to wonder if this is all there is. But it’s not the big questions that shake you. It’s the small ones. The questions that eat away at your edges when you’re too tired to fight them. Why did it matter? Why does anything matter? What does it mean to walk through a world where nobody cares if you’re there or not?
And what does he do with that?
It builds. It sits inside him, pressing against the walls. At first, he shoves it down. He keeps walking. He keeps pretending. But slowly, the walls break down. The hell that was buried deep starts to find a way out, doesn’t it? It twists into something darker. It doesn’t scream, it doesn’t shout... it whispers. You’ve seen death before. It’s not so bad, is it?
No. It’s not so bad.
The boy. The world. The people who pass by, never looking, never seeing. They walk by like shadows, like they’re not really there, like they don’t matter. And the silence grows louder. It presses in until there’s no room for anything else. No room for anything real.
And that’s where it begins, doesn’t it?
It’s not that he wants to hurt. It’s not even that he wants to feel anything. It’s that he stops seeing them as people at all. He stops seeing himself as anything but another shadow, another blur in the street. The walls close in, and the space between the living and the dead starts to shrink. They’re the same, aren’t they? Just more people passing by. Just more empty faces who don’t matter.
And somewhere, deep in the silence, he realizes that what he felt before? It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t horror. It was just... emptiness. The same emptiness he carries, the same hollow space that’s become so familiar.
And it doesn’t matter anymore.
It doesn’t matter who they are. It doesn’t matter if they’re lost or forgotten. All that matters is that, at the end of it all, he’ll be the one who’s seen. He’ll be the one who makes them feel it.
Because he can. And it’s the only thing left to do.



The Baron

take it to creative writing section

[The Baron]

A Life Unseen

The air tastes different now, thick, almost suffocating. He walks, but he doesn’t really feel the ground beneath his boots anymore. It’s as though the world itself has become a blur, each step melding with the next, each hour stretching into infinity. He should feel something, shouldn’t he? A weight, a sense of loss, something. But he doesn’t. Not anymore.
It happened. He knows it happened. He saw it. That boy, his body crumpling beneath the cart. He remembers it, but somehow it’s like it happened to someone else. Not him. Not the man who was there. It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so violent, so final, could slip away from him so easily.
He’s walked through worse in his life. So many faces, so many days, so many moments lost in the ebb of time. What’s one more death, really? What’s one more body falling in a world already so filled with them? At first, there’s a kind of shock, of course. He’s not supposed to feel indifferent to death, is he? But it settles. It fades into the background like everything else. And when the world won’t even give him the satisfaction of recognition, well, what’s left?
He felt... nothing.
Not in the way they said he should, at least. There was no horror, no tears, no frantic search for answers. It just was. And after it happened, there was only silence. A deafening, empty silence, where the world continued to turn, and he was left behind, still walking, still breathing.
Was it really so bad?
The thing about death... is that it’s so quiet, so final. And yet, there’s this strange peace in it. The boy is gone. That moment is gone. It doesn’t change anything. He keeps walking, the cart still moving, the work still waiting. He doesn’t stop. He can’t. The world needs him to keep moving, and so he does.
But something... shifted, didn’t it? That quiet little fracture in his mind, barely noticeable at first. It grows. Slowly. And he doesn’t even see it happening. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to look at it.
But the more he pushed it down, the more he hid it, the clearer it became. The world? It doesn’t care. The world doesn’t notice what happens to the ones who fall, the ones who get caught. The boy... he fell, and no one cared. Not really. Not after the news had gone cold, not after the blame had been settled, not after the accident had been tucked away neatly into the shadows of the city’s memory.
And he? He was still here. No one even knew he existed, except for his own hollow reflection. The same empty stare he sees every day, walking through the fog.
There’s something strange about being alone with yourself. You start to question. You start to wonder if this is all there is. But it’s not the big questions that shake you. It’s the small ones. The questions that eat away at your edges when you’re too tired to fight them. Why did it matter? Why does anything matter? What does it mean to walk through a world where nobody cares if you’re there or not?
And what does he do with that?
It builds. It sits inside him, pressing against the walls. At first, he shoves it down. He keeps walking. He keeps pretending. But slowly, the walls break down. The hell that was buried deep starts to find a way out, doesn’t it? It twists into something darker. It doesn’t scream, it doesn’t shout... it whispers. You’ve seen death before. It’s not so bad, is it?
No. It’s not so bad.
The boy. The world. The people who pass by, never looking, never seeing. They walk by like shadows, like they’re not really there, like they don’t matter. And the silence grows louder. It presses in until there’s no room for anything else. No room for anything real.
And that’s where it begins, doesn’t it?
It’s not that he wants to hurt. It’s not even that he wants to feel anything. It’s that he stops seeing them as people at all. He stops seeing himself as anything but another shadow, another blur in the street. The walls close in, and the space between the living and the dead starts to shrink. They’re the same, aren’t they? Just more people passing by. Just more empty faces who don’t matter.
And somewhere, deep in the silence, he realizes that what he felt before? It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t horror. It was just... emptiness. The same emptiness he carries, the same hollow space that’s become so familiar.
And it doesn’t matter anymore.
It doesn’t matter who they are. It doesn’t matter if they’re lost or forgotten. All that matters is that, at the end of it all, he’ll be the one who’s seen. He’ll be the one who makes them feel it.
Because he can. And it’s the only thing left to do.



The Baron

[Fiver]

Let's be fair here, the murder probably happened around 3:30am when mumblings was heard, a train was passing and it spooked the real killer. He was long gone before Cross got there about 3:40 am.
Common sense seems to be rare in some quarters.

Common sense is the rarest of the senses.

[Geddy2112]

Let's be fair here, the murder probably happened around 3:30am when mumblings was heard, a train was passing and it spooked the real killer. He was long gone before Cross got there about 3:40 am.
Common sense seems to be rare in some quarters.

[FrankO]

Good post, Fiver.

So Lechmere not walking off into the darkness is either the actions if an innocent man or of a stunningly stupid murderer. It is only by luck that Robert Paul doesn't see Rippermere trying to clean his hands and knife, put the knife away, and move from crouching over the body to standing in the street. It is only by luck that Rippermere touching Robert Paul does not leave an unexplainable bloodstain on Paul's clothing. It is only by luck that neither Robert Paul nor PC Mizen notice blood on Rippermere's hands or clothing. It is only by luck that neither Paul nor Mizen ask for Rippermere's name.

It's only luck the carmen don't walk into Neil after having left Nichols. It's only luck that Neil is at the crime scene when Mizen arrives.

[Geddy2112]

Not forgetting Lechmere Avenue, in Woodford Green, which is located directly parallel to the southern end of the M11 motorway.

Driven passed it many times

We have a Leechmere Road and Leechmere industrial estate, it's bloody murder to drive around about 3:30am on a Friday morning...