Lets get Lechmere off the hook!

[Trevor Marriott]

There will always be the possibility that a killer could have escaped. This is part of the exchange between Neil and the coroner on the first dya of the inquest:

The Coroner: Whitechapel-road is busy in the early morning, I believe. Could anybody have escaped that way?

Witness: Oh yes, sir. I saw a number of women in the main road going home. At that time any one could have got away.

So Neil did not exclude the possibility that the killer had gotten away. He did however also say that he had not heard anything at all that morning and that there was not a soul about in Buckīs Row. And if there had been the sound of footsteps, I think it is reasonable to argue that they would have been picked up on by either Neil or any of his colleagues - or the night watchmen. And for the killer to escape via Woods buildings, you would first have to go into Winthrop Street, where Patrick Mulshaw was.

Anyhow, it cannot be excluded that flight was possible, since there were also other possibilities, like Queen Anne Street.

My own take on things is that we may perhaps not need to believe in the phantom killer invented by the press back in 1888 when we know that the man who found Nichols was alone with her for an unestablished amount of time, when we know that he did not give his real name to the police, when we know that PC Mizen disagreed with him over what he had said, when we know that what Mizen claimed he had said would be a perfectly shaped lie to take him past the police, and when we know that Nichols was still bleeding as Mizen saw her. Plus a few more things, like his correlation with the other murder spots, the pulled down dress etcetera.

He could be innocent - but it sure looks the other way around.

The best,
Fisherman

I have been going back and analyzing the evidence you seek to rely on in your attempt to prove Cross killed Nicholls. As I understand what you suggest is that he had up to 13 minutes in which to meet Nicholls and kill her Based on leaving home at approx 3.20am and arriving in Bucks Row at 3.27am and Paul coming along at about 3.40am

Most of your case is built around timings for as has been suggested if any of the timings are out then it shatters your case because for him to have been the killer your timings have to be almost exact with very little room for maneuverability.

Now based on that, he would either have had to meet NIcholls in Bucks Row or somewhere else on his route to work if the latter then that would have used up more valuable time in getting to Bucks Row because you only allow him 7 minutes from house to Bucks Row.

I have posted this before but I think it is so important and something you clearly have no thought out and allowed for when going public with your theory.

Lets look at the witness timings again.

Pc Neil
first pass in Bucks Row should have been 3.15am approx
second pass should have been 3.27approx (12 minute round beat)
third pass 3.39am approx which is when he finds body.

Monty kindly informed us that the beats were 30 minute beats so the 12 minute beat could be a mistake. If that is the case then the murder could have taken place between 3.15am and 3.27am, some 12 minutes before Cross got there. This is reliant on Pc Neils movements and time being correct. If they were not, and he was not in Bucks Row at 3.15am then her murder could have occurred some time before that and long before Cross finds the body. Pc Neil then says he found the body at 3.39am

Now according to the evidence, by 3.39am Cross and Paul had already found the body and gone off to find a policeman, deduct 3-4 minutes for that so that brings the time down to 3.35am approx when Cross and Paul left the scene. Now take of the time allowed for Cross to be seen standing in the road as Paul approached, and time they spent with the body and that takes it down even more.

No time for Cross to kill Nichols

Lets look at other factors which weaken your theory

1. The exact time of death cannot be firmly established
(on this aspect you rely on Dr Llewellyn stating death had occurred at
about 3.45am) As we now know this was guesswork

2. The time of death cannot be established through looking at a wound.

3. The time of death cannot be established through blood loss

4. The witness timings are all over the place and are un-reliable,

I have purposely ignored the smokescreen about walking to work through the murder locations and visiting relatives in the murder locations thats not even worth considering in the grand scheme of things

I have also ignored the giving of a false name I think that has been explored and evem Scobie says it is insignificant

Taking all of these facts together do you reall still think you now have a case which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Cross killed Nicholls?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

If Lechmere wasn't the killer (and I don't believe he was) weren't there alleyways to the south of the murder site, leading into Winthrop St past Woods Buildings and then safety, ie Whitechapel High St?
Admittedly no-one heard the sound of retreating hobnail boots on the cobbles but then no-one was listening for them either.

There will always be the possibility that a killer could have escaped. This is part of the exchange between Neil and the coroner on the first dya of the inquest:

The Coroner: Whitechapel-road is busy in the early morning, I believe. Could anybody have escaped that way?

Witness: Oh yes, sir. I saw a number of women in the main road going home. At that time any one could have got away.

So Neil did not exclude the possibility that the killer had gotten away. He did however also say that he had not heard anything at all that morning and that there was not a soul about in Buckīs Row. And if there had been the sound of footsteps, I think it is reasonable to argue that they would have been picked up on by either Neil or any of his colleagues - or the night watchmen. And for the killer to escape via Woods buildings, you would first have to go into Winthrop Street, where Patrick Mulshaw was.

Anyhow, it cannot be excluded that flight was possible, since there were also other possibilities, like Queen Anne Street.

My own take on things is that we may perhaps not need to believe in the phantom killer invented by the press back in 1888 when we know that the man who found Nichols was alone with her for an unestablished amount of time, when we know that he did not give his real name to the police, when we know that PC Mizen disagreed with him over what he had said, when we know that what Mizen claimed he had said would be a perfectly shaped lie to take him past the police, and when we know that Nichols was still bleeding as Mizen saw her. Plus a few more things, like his correlation with the other murder spots, the pulled down dress etcetera.

He could be innocent - but it sure looks the other way around.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rosella]

If Lechmere wasn't the killer (and I don't believe he was) weren't there alleyways to the south of the murder site, leading into Winthrop St past Woods Buildings and then safety, ie Whitechapel High St?
Admittedly no-one heard the sound of retreating hobnail boots on the cobbles but then no-one was listening for them either.

[martin wilson]

Hi all

I went off Henry Tomkin's inquest evidence regarding the number of prostitutes on the Whitechapel road. We will never know the exact time Cross left for work that morning, but it seems reasonable to speculate that if he set out to kill, then that would be a logical place to find a victim.
Michael Connor speculated he was delivering to Spitalfields market on the day of Anne Chapman's murder, the timings don't exonerate Cross, the market opened at 5 a.m and it's again a 4 minute walk to Hanbury street from the market, and 3 or 4 minutes from Bucks row back to the Whitechapel road.
All the best.

[Pcdunn]

Hello Pcdunn,

Xmere mistook the body for a tarpaulin until he saw what it actually was, he wasn't being callous.

"It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw it was the figure of a woman."

Daily News

Yes, I agree, it was his explanation of what got his attention that morning.

I was saying the statement could be interpreted one way if we want to see him as innocent, and very much another way if we want him to be guilty. That goes for just about everything else connected with the Nichols case, in my opinion.

[Fisherman]

Fisherman,
Peter Sutcliffe was obsessed with murder.As was the Ripper.The intent to kill would have been constantly on their mind.Intent to kill in such cases is an essential element in a murder conviction.Now are you saying there was no intent to kill Nicholls.That perhaps it was an accidental death,or such like.Manslaughter perhaps?Intent is self descriptive,or is it that you do not understand the word,or it's implication?
If in doubt,ask a policeman.Trevor perhaps.

I think it is very resonable to conclude that there was a wish to kill on behalf of the person that put an end to the life of Polly Nichols.

What I fail to see, however, is why it would be ridiculous to suggest that Charles Lechmere could have been the killer, they way you do. You write:

"Now to intent.Surely that is clear.There was an intent to kill Nicholls.If we assess Cross as the killer when did that intent enter his mind.Did he wake from sleep with that intent,or did it suddenly spring to mind on meeting Nicholls.Did he spend a sleepless night planning to kill a victim on his way to work.?What was the reason.Think along those lines and then like me you will see how ridiculous the notion is that Cross w as the killer of Nicholls."

You apparently think that Lechmere could not possibly have had the intention to kill, and I have no idea where you have got that from. As far as I can tell he is just as likely as anybody else to have had the intent to kill, and therefore I find your post odd in the extreme.

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,
Peter Sutcliffe was obsessed with murder.As was the Ripper.The intent to kill would have been constantly on their mind.Intent to kill in such cases is an essential element in a murder conviction.Now are you saying there was no intent to kill Nicholls.That perhaps it was an accidental death,or such like.Manslaughter perhaps?Intent is self descriptive,or is it that you do not understand the word,or it's implication?
If in doubt,ask a policeman.Trevor perhaps.

[Fisherman]

Hello Pcdunn,

Xmere mistook the body for a tarpaulin until he saw what it actually was, he wasn't being callous.

"It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw it was the figure of a woman."

Daily News

Actually, I think he lied about it, to impress upon the jury that he was innocent. I donīt think he mistook the body for anything, having killed Nichols himself.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Pcdunn:

JtR seems to have been profiled as a "disorganized killer", yet to accept Lechmere as calm enough to bluff his way through questioning by the police, (possibly with the weapon concealed about his person)-- we have to see him as a sociopath, and an incredibly cool one at that. That doesn't fit in with a "disorganized" killer at all.

Different people make different assessments of him. There are traits that can be interpreted both ways. Letīs just say that disorganized killers are very prone to leave clues behind themselves, to be noisy and sloppy, to have no plan for how to escape undetected etcetera.
The two things that may be interpreted as disorganized are
A/ The eviscerations - many eviscerators are disorganized. But Arthur Shawcross, for example, was highly organized, as was Chikatilo and a heap of other guys who were into eviscerations.
B/ Killing out in the open street may seem disorganized. But arriving at the scene and leaving it unnoticed does not.

This is a working man, who had been at the same company for 20 years, a family man whose wife and children never suspected him of anything anti-social. He doesn't seem to ever have done anything eccentric, let alone insane or violent. He lives to an advanced age, sometimes unusual in that era, and attesting to his native strength and good health. He walked the same streets as JTR, but so did a great many other men.

Gary Ridgway? John Eric Armstrong? Robert Hansen? Peter Kürten? Family men, who held down their jobs for many years. I canīt remember the name, but there was one serialist who buried a victim under his and his wifeīs bedroom window.

It is not nice when we cannot see throught these men. It is unnerving. But there you are. In fact, what makes many of them hard to catch is that they are seemingly very normal and not intimidating at all.

And Iīm afraid we canīt say that Lechmere never did anything eccentric. We do not have his actions and his demeanor on record. He could have been extremely eccentric.
Or he could have seemed totally normal - as so many serialists do.

It is true some "family men" have been sociopaths and serial killers and have hidden it from their loved ones, but they usually get found out, sooner or later. There is usually some slip made.

There are hundreds of unsolved serial killer cases, PcDunn. Do you ever think about HOW they stay unsolved? I would propose that in most of these cases, the killer was not ever suspected because he or she seemed totally normal. That would have been a key factor in these people not having been caught.
There will also be numerous cases where the police never had a clue that a number of murders were interconnected, and therefore failed to notice that they were dealing with a serialist.
The ones you look at are the ones that actually WERE caught.

It seems to be pure conjecture about Mr. Lechmere's mental state and his actions, as far as the other murders are concerned.

His logical working treks, his decades in St Georges, his mothers address and the correlations in method within the murders are not conjecture.

Yes, we could say he killed Polly, and referring to her body as "a man's tarpaulin" in all of his inquest testimony is an indication of his callousness toward his victim. But, just as easily, we could say he was an innocent passerby who paused to look at something unusual on his route to work.

... and who gave the wrong name to the police, and who had logical working treks that took him past the murder sites, and who seems to have misled Mizen, and who was not seen or heard by Robert Paul, and ...

Mr. Paul said he saw Lechmere in the middle of the road, and that he was wary about this, due to his fear of robbers (given the time and place, very understandable). Lechmere may have decided to attract Paul's attention to the dying or dead woman and play the role of an innocent witness -- or he may have been an innocent witness.

Yep, that is pretty much it - other alternatives are hard to find.

I don't think we have enough evidence, other than the two names, and both seem to be attached to him. I doubt many people in Whitechapel gave their right name to the police, but Lechmere did give his correct address. Couldn't that be a simple slip of the tongue?
Of course, we still lack any information on who killed Polly, if Lechmere did not. Maybe the fellow escaped through the stables, for all we or anyone else knows.

The door was locked, PcDunn, so no, he did not disappear through the stables. And none of the PC:s around the site said anything about having seen somebody to attract attention at the time, nor did any of the watchmen.

Plus Polly was still bleeding a good many minutes after Lechmere left her.

So thereīs your killer for you. Why wonīt you accept him?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

If we assess Cross as the killer when did that intent enter his mind.Did he wake from sleep with that intent,or did it suddenly spring to mind on meeting Nicholls.Did he spend a sleepless night planning to kill a victim on his way to work.?What was the reason.Think along those lines and then like me you will see how ridiculous the notion is that Cross w as the killer of Nicholls.

With respect, Harry, this is quite odd. Reasoning like this, nobody would ever kill.

Did Peter Sutcliffe wake up with murder on his mind? Or did it leap to mind later in the day? Did he spend sleeppess nights planning to kill?

No, never. Think like that and he is exonerated! I will become obvious that the mere suggestion that he ever killed is completely ridiculous.

Or not.

How did you arrive at this conclusion, Harry?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Trevor Marriott:

Just to point out that although the witnesses states than when the body of Nicholls was found she was lying on her back. There is no reference as to how the head was positioned. So you cannot comment on gravitation in relation to how open or closed the wounds were, because you already accept that which ever way the neck was positioned would determine how open or closed he wounds were and this would then have a dircet bearing on blood flow and blood loss.

Your pathologist: "In practice, if the neck was injured almost to the point of decapitation, then there might be little in the way of a ‘clamping’ effect possible no matter how the neck is angled."

No matter how the neck is angled, Trevor.

My understanding is that a body will never fully bleed out, after the initial heavy bleeding from such a throat wound the blood could continue to ooze/seep for at least 20 mins irrespective of the gravity or the position of the body as long as there still is blood in the veins. Now to me this sounds quite logical.

When you put a glass of water on a table, will the water start running over the brim, and go o to do so for at least twenty minutes, Trevor?
Nope, it wonīt.
And why? Because gravity prevents the water from climbing up along the wall og the glass.
A dead body is quite similar in many ways. The blood in it will flow out of it, as long as there are reasons of gravity for it.
But if there are not, then the blood will not flow out.

What strange, magical power is it that you envisage, that would make the blood ooze or seep out of the body irrespective of gravity or the position of the body?

The only thing that can accomplish this is pressure in the veins. And the pressure in the veins goes away when you die. A small part of it remains as long as the viens are not opened up, but when this happens, that smallish pressure goes away in seconds, and the pressure inside the veins and outside them becomes the same, meaning that ONLY gravity and the position of the body will govern how much blood runs out.

Much as I am no physiologist, I think you have actually got this totally backwards.

The best,
Fisherman

[drstrange169]

Hello Pcdunn,

Xmere mistook the body for a tarpaulin until he saw what it actually was, he wasn't being callous.

"It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he saw it was the figure of a woman."

Daily News

[Pcdunn]

Well, my opinion...

A thread in which I would like for people to state what speaks against Lechmere as being the Whitechapel killer.

Here is the perfect opportunity to overwhelm me with good hard evidence that he could not have dun it, inklings why he would be innocent, cleverly thought-out scenarios that must exclude Charles the carman, convictions, expertise, experience - anything that tells us why Charles Allen Lechmere could or would not have been the Ripper.

Once it begins dropping in, I aim to process and list it, and at some stage, I will post the outcome.

Itīs a one-in-a-lifetime chance - who would have thought that I would present a thread by such a mouthwatering name...? Go for it and go hard!

Good luck and all the best,
Fisherman

Hello. I have finished reading the long thread about the "Missing Evidence" episode about Lechmere being Jack the Ripper.
The interesting thing to me was that I could see both sides of the debate as being plausible, as far as Nichols' murder is concerned, but I'm not sure about all of the rest of the McNaughten Five being committed by Mr. Lechmere, aka Cross.

JtR seems to have been profiled as a "disorganized killer", yet to accept Lechmere as calm enough to bluff his way through questioning by the police, (possibly with the weapon concealed about his person)-- we have to see him as a sociopath, and an incredibly cool one at that. That doesn't fit in with a "disorganized" killer at all.

This is a working man, who had been at the same company for 20 years, a family man whose wife and children never suspected him of anything anti-social. He doesn't seem to ever have done anything eccentric, let alone insane or violent. He lives to an advanced age, sometimes unusual in that era, and attesting to his native strength and good health. He walked the same streets as JTR, but so did a great many other men.

It is true some "family men" have been sociopaths and serial killers and have hidden it from their loved ones, but they usually get found out, sooner or later. There is usually some slip made.
It seems to be pure conjecture about Mr. Lechmere's mental state and his actions, as far as the other murders are concerned.

Yes, we could say he killed Polly, and referring to her body as "a man's tarpaulin" in all of his inquest testimony is an indication of his callousness toward his victim. But, just as easily, we could say he was an innocent passerby who paused to look at something unusual on his route to work.
Mr. Paul said he saw Lechmere in the middle of the road, and that he was wary about this, due to his fear of robbers (given the time and place, very understandable). Lechmere may have decided to attract Paul's attention to the dying or dead woman and play the role of an innocent witness -- or he may have been an innocent witness.
I don't think we have enough evidence, other than the two names, and both seem to be attached to him. I doubt many people in Whitechapel gave their right name to the police, but Lechmere did give his correct address. Couldn't that be a simple slip of the tongue?
Of course, we still lack any information on who killed Polly, if Lechmere did not. Maybe the fellow escaped through the stables, for all we or anyone else knows.

[harry]

So we get no information as to when the throat was cut.After 3 .30 if we accept the only reasonable witness statement,but how long after?Five minutes.Not unlikely,but before Cross arrives at the scene obviously.
Now to intent.Surely that is clear.There was an intent to kill Nicholls.If we assess Cross as the killer when did that intent enter his mind.Did he wake from sleep with that intent,or did it suddenly spring to mind on meeting Nicholls.Did he spend a sleepless night planning to kill a victim on his way to work.?What was the reason.Think along those lines and then like me you will see how ridiculous the notion is that Cross w as the killer of Nicholls.
In theory it was physically possible,but possibilities by themselves do not convict,and that is all that we have on which to make judgement.

[Trevor Marriott]

I found this sentence on the net:

I guess that one could say that dead bodies don’t bleed so much as they ooze.

Makes sense to me.

As for the difference inbetween bleeding from a cut artery in a living person as opposed to in a dead person, the simple answer is that the blood will leave a living person at a quicker rate, due to the pressure in the veins.

Returning to the initial post by Trevors pathologist, he said that "Getting back to the specific case in question, if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millilitres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively, and that this would happen within the initial couple of minutes."

Here he obviously refers to the specific Nichols case, relating how the body was situated (lying motionless on the ground) and the extent of the damage done to the neck (significant open neck wounds). He then adds that in such a case (and this relates to a case such as the Nichols case) he would imagine that an amount of at least a few hundred millilitres of blood - and probably considerably more - could flow out passively.
So here he tells us that the amount of blood that could flow out passively (as in after death and with no pressure from a beating heart) could range in amount from a few hundred millilitres up to "considerably more", the latter amount not being specified.
Regardless of the amount, though, he says that "this would happen within the initial couple of minutes".

If he had said no more than this, we would not be having any discussion over the matter, for it would be totally clear that he said "In a case like the Polly Nichols case, whatever amount of blood left the body passively afterwards, would leave it in the initial couple of minutes.

However, the pathologist says a few more things, that veil this issue to some extent.

For example, he says that "It is also possible that a continued slow trickle could go on for many minutes after death if the wound /gravity conditions were right, ending up with even a few litres of blood being present in extreme circumstances."

Does this passage relate to the Nichols murder, or is it a general observation? Does he think that Nichols, specifically, could have bled for many minutes on account of the "wound/gravity conditions" being right?

The interesting thing is that the pathologist KNEW the wound/gravity conditions in Nichols case. He just established them: She was lying motionless on the ground (correct) and had significant open neck wounds (correct). And he clearly said that with these parameters in place, he would imagine the bleeding to be overwith within the initial couple of minutes.

The question about what sort of wound/gravity conditions would enable a slow trickle of blood to go on is an interesting one. I would suggest that the wound conditions that could slow the process down would be of two types:
1. A situation where the blood outflow was in any way hampered by some sort of obstacle. And we know that this was not in play, just as we know that the pathologist suggested that Nichols position (lying motionless flat on the ground) would be a parameter that made him expect a quick bleeding out in her particular case.
2. A positioning of the body that meant that a greater amount of blood would leave it than the position lying flat down on the ground. The more vertical the position of the body, the more blood would leave it, predisposing that the wound through which the blood leaked out was positioned as near to the coere of the earth as possible, while the exact reverse applies if that wound was as far away from the core of the earth as possible.
If we decapitate a body (thereīs that decapitation again, Trevor!) and hang it feet up, the exsanguination will be very full. Almost every drop of blood will leave the body, and that will take some time.
If we position that decapitated body with the neck up, very little blood will leave the body, and it will happen in a very short time.
So this is where gravitation comes in.

It is interesting information, and it belongs to the discussion, but it does not apply to the Nichols case. In that case, the pathologist made his call by saying "Getting back to the specific case (Nichols, my remark) in question, if the body were lying motionless on the ground with significant open neck wounds (and it was, my remark) then I would imagine that at least a few hundred millilitres (and probably considerably more) could flow out passively, and that this would happen within the initial couple of minutes."

So what the pathologist says is "watch out - there can be factors to weigh in that may have an impact, and that I could have missed since I never saw the body". Wise enough - but as far as we can tell, he made a one hundred per cent correct description of it.

The same thing applies when he speaks of the twenty minute bleeding, as far as I can tell. He canīt first say "In a case like Nicholsī case, I would expect the bleeding to be over within the initial couple of minutes", and then say "Iīm sure she could have bled for twenty minutes" in the next breath. For her to have bled for twenty minutes we need to have another gravity influx than the one we know we had, and/or other circumstances attaching to the wound than we know we had.

In a sense, the discussion is beginning to resemble the discussion about what Phillips said about Chapmans TOD, where people suggest that the doctor would first say that she had been dead at least two hours, only to then disqualify his own judgement in the next second, without anybody having challenged him, and allowing for just one hour.
He would, according to these merry speculators, have gone into an inquest after having made a very thorough investigation, after having weighed the matter carefully, and said "I have taken a good look at this and with the aid of my professional experience, I have come to the conclusion that this woman could not have been dead for any less than two hours. I personally think that she actually has been dead for a significantly longer time, but I am willing to accept that it COULD have been for just two hours.
But hey, maybe she has just been dead for an hour or less."

Trevors pathologist gives us a lesson about what factors will be important, and points out that in cases involving deathly violence to the neck, depending on the circumstances, the victims can bleed for very varying amounts of time after having suffered their neck damages.

But he ALSO telles us, that in the specific case of Nichols, if she was lying motionless, flat on the ground and if her neck damages were significant and with open blood vessels, then he "would imagine" that she would bleed out in the initial couple of minutes.

I fail to see how he could have been any clearer on that particular score.

The best,
Fisherman

Just to point out that although the witnesses states than when the body of Nicholls was found she was lying on her back. There is no reference as to how the head was positioned. So you cannot comment on gravitation in relation to how open or closed the wounds were, because you already accept that which ever way the neck was positioned would determine how open or closed he wounds were and this would then have a dircet bearing on blood flow and blood loss.

My understanding is that a body will never fully bleed out, after the initial heavy bleeding from such a throat wound the blood could continue to ooze/seep for at least 20 mins irrespective of the gravity or the position of the body as long as there still is blood in the veins. Now to me this sounds quite logical.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk