Lets get Lechmere off the hook!

[Robert]

Hi Fish

I see, so on August 31st the police were questioning members of the public, but somehow forgot to question their own man PC Mizen.

Of course, Mizen would have been questioned, the story of the two men would have come out, and the police would have realised that, at least according to Mizen, a lie had been told.

Mizen was perfectly entitled to state his evidence at the inquest, provided he was speaking in good faith. No one can tell a man what to say at an inquest.

Equally, the Coroner and juryman were entitled to press Crossmere at the inquest. Inquests are places where evidence is given on oath and in public.

As to what other Ripperologists down the ages, far more knowledgeable than myself, might have thought about the discrepancy, I'm afraid you'll have to ask them, though in some cases you will need a spiritualist.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to post the Neil interview as I don't recall seeing it.

Mantras, Fish? You know what happens to people who sit cross-legged on the floor chanting mantras - their tea gets cold.

[Chris]

I think I'll wait for the book to come out, so that I can see the Lechmerian arguments in a more concise form...

[Sally]

I still don't understand why Crossmere didn't just stay at home if he was really the psychopathic genius of er.. conjecture. I mean, he'd have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling... well, himself, really.

It must be terribly complicated and tricky - yes, that must be why I don't get it!

I don't suppose there's any chance that he was what he appears to have been - a simple carman late for work who unfortunately stumbled across a murder victim?

No of course not! That'd be silly, wouldn't it?

[Robert]

Sally, if I understand the Lechmerians correctly, they're saying that Crossmere would indeed have kept quiet, but that on Sunday 2nd he either read or heard about Paul's Lloyds interview and decided to go to the police. Actually for all we know he may have gone to the police Saturday night, but they seem to have ruled this out. We don't even know that he wasn't at the inquest on the Saturday, and simply failed to be called before the adjournment, but that's ruled out too.

Anyway, it seems to be that Crossmere starts worrying that if he doesn't come forward it will look bad for him if he should ever bump into Mizen or Paul again and be recognized, so he goes to the police and tells his story. However, once a domineering wife-beating stomach-ripping murderer, always a domineering wife-beating stomach-ripping murderer, and he simply can't resist giving the police his alternative surname, in a defiant gesture of evil.

[Sally]

Anyway, it seems to be that Crossmere starts worrying that if he doesn't come forward it will look bad for him if he should ever bump into Mizen or Paul again and be recognized, so he goes to the police and tells his story.

But Robert - surely all he'd have needed there is a big hat? Nobody could've recognised him then.

However, once a domineering wife-beating stomach-ripping murderer, always a domineering wife-beating stomach-ripping murderer, and he simply can't resist giving the police his alternative surname, in a defiant gesture of evil

Oh....! So that's why he did it.

You know, I always wondered about that.

[Sally]

Actually, maybe there's more to this hat business than meets the eye. It's slightly worrying...

[Robert]

Any of these hats would have kept him free of suspicion :

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/style/483536/Ladies-Day-fashion-at-Royal-Ascot

[caz]

But suppose, just for fun, we go along with the premise that Crossmere told a naughty, self-interested lie to Mizen - out of earshot of the hapless Paul, of course - well then! Crossmere - having cleverly [some might call it the mark of a psychopathic genius] deducted that Mizen was too busy knocking up to be much bothered by the prospect of a dead [but possibly drunk] woman and would therefore not hurry to the scene particularly as he believed there to be a policeman at the scene as told to him by Clever Crossmere....

Er... Where was I??

Oh yes - suppose all that worked and Crossmere managed to bamboozle the hapless cops, dissappearing into the night - or Pickfords, whatever.

He'd effectively gotten away with it, hadn't he? Mizen didn't know who he was. Paul had never seen him before - what are the chances he'd have picked him out again?

Practically zero, Sally, I'd have thought. Nobody ever found the distinctive blotchy man with red whiskers, who was actually seen entering MJK's room with her, did they? If that was Lechmere, he got away with it again on that occasion despite showing his face to Mrs Cox. But try using this argument and see where it gets you. Apparently, Paul would suddenly have become the cop's best friend and found his fellow carman with no trouble at all, even if Mizen by any faint chance had not been paying full enough attention to Cross to recognise him again. Maybe Cross had one of those faces nobody could possibly forget - in which case foul murder on the streets was not perhaps what he ought to have been doing with his life.

And what does he do instead? He trots off to the cop shop and tells them where he lives. And where he works.

And unaccountably his real middle name, Allen, which was hardly common enough to guarantee anonymity.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

In fact, in the unhappy event that Mizen and Paul had managed to recognise Lechmere again, so what? Blabbing to the papers, bad-mouthing the police and having to be fetched up in the middle of the night never did the reluctant Paul any harm did it? What could they have pinned on Lechmere if he had merely shown a similar reluctance to get any more involved? They had no evidence Nichols was alive when he first encountered her. There still is no evidence.

Love,

Caz
X

[Phil Carter]

David,

I see you have trouble understanding Simon's point. Allow me to put it another way...


It is a well known fact, that, whether we like it or not, whether we are or were policemen, whether we are experts in criminology or not, there are, and have always been, policemen who would rather save their own skins by pulling a fast one, telling a lie, collaborating with another of the same ilk etc etc etc.

Now anyone who honestly believes that all the policemen involved in the history of the Whitechapel Murders wer as clean as a whistle, never said boo to a goose and never ever said no to their granny really does need a reality check...it ISN'T a "conspiracy"...I repeat... it ISN'T a conspiracy for policemen to protect their own backsides..it is quite, quite normal. It is the same today. It was the same 10 years ago, 20, 30 40 50 60 70 80 ..etc etc etc... times may have changed but there are still policemen that hold a law unto themselves...and it applied very very much so in the 1870's 1880's 1890's etc etc.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of instances of police action, word or deed being covered up from within the force. It isn't fantasy.

The problem with Ripperology is that nobody WANTS you to believe it is at all likely in THIS case.

On the contrary, some will defend the police to the hilt........STILL..........

Realists know different. Including the estimated 700 or so Met Police bobbies and CID officers on the take during the 1960's and 1970's when the Richardsons and the Krays were around.

Go back to the 1870's and find just the same going on.


THAT is reality. So policemen lying to protect their backsides through their own incompetence or because they weren't doing their job as they should have been?..... perfectly reasonable.

A Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones :-)




Phil

[David Orsam]

David,

I see you have trouble understanding Simon's point.

Hi Phil,

I don't have any problem with the general proposition that the police in 1888 (or at any time) might have got together and told lies for whatever reason (and that they might have thought they had good reasons to do so). The trouble I had in understanding Simon's point was (a) why they would have done so in this particular case and (b) how them doing so makes any sense on the evidence in this particular case. I was hoping that he would explain the specifics and the mechanics of it to me and tell me what really happened. No doubt he will do so shortly.

One thing though. This sentence: "it ISN'T a conspiracy for policemen to protect their own backsides..it is quite, quite normal." is both logically flawed and wrong. Whether something is normal or not does not affect whether it is a conspiracy. And I have some rather bad news for you. If three policemen agree between themselves to give false evidence at a coroner's inquiry about the circumstances of the finding of the body in a murder investigation then it most certainly is a conspiracy. It may or may not be normal - I don't care if it is or isn't - but it is undoubtedly, and without question, a conspiracy.

Merry Christmas to you too!

[David Orsam]

I see, so on August 31st the police were questioning members of the public, but somehow forgot to question their own man PC Mizen.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to post the Neil interview as I don't recall seeing it.

As Fisherman appears to be off enjoying the real world, I hope neither you nor he will mind if I step in here because I think it will be very helpful for the quality of the debate to set out the context of this issue.

Inspector Spratling reported in writing to the Assistant Commissioner late on Friday 31 August (certainly during the afternoon but quite possibly in the evening) as follows:

"P.C. 97J, Neil, reports at 3.45. on 31st inst. He found the dead body of a woman lying on her back with her clothes a little above her knees, with her throat cut from ear to ear on a yard crossing at Bucks Row, Whitechapel. P.C. Neil obtained the assistance of P.C.s 55.H. Smizen and 96J Thain, the latter called Dr Llewellyn, No. 153, Whitechapel Road, he arrived quickly and pronounced life to be extinct, apparently but a few minutes, he directed her removed to the mortuary, stating he would make a further examination there, which was done on the ambulance."

From this, it appears that not only did "the police" then think that Neil was the first to find the body but Spratling didn't even know PC Mizen's correct name (calling him "Smizen"). For me, it's not surprising. He was the third officer on the scene, he had supposedly been called to the scene by PC Neil while walking down Bakers Row and his only apparent involvement had been to fetch an ambulance. No-one was interested in him. The police's priorities on the Friday were to identify the deceased (which was done on Saturday morning), make door to door enquiries in Bucks Row to establish if anyone heard or saw anything in the night, search for the murder weapon and catch the murderer.

Bearing in mind that the Times reported the following information on Saturday morning:

"At a quarter to 4 o'clock Police-constable Neill, 97J, when in Buck's-row, Whitechapel, came upon the body of a woman lying on a part of the footway"

which info can only have come from the police, it seems fairly clear that as of close of play on Friday it was still not known by the police that the two carmen had been the first to discover the body.

The inquest was rapidly commenced on Saturday afternoon which tied up Inspectors Abberline and Helson. During the afternoon. PC Neil gave evidence about the finding of the body. While it is perfectly true that we do not have any evidence about the investigation on the Saturday, the People newspaper reported on Sunday morning that "The facts are that as Constable John Neil was walking down Buck's-row, Thomas-street, Whitechapel, about a quarter to four o'clock on Friday morning he discovered a woman between 35 and 40 years of age lying at the side of the street dead"

So nothing was emerging from police sources that anyone other than Neil had been the first on the scene.

During Saturday, however, a reporter from the Weekly Dispatch/Lloyd's Weekly News appears to have spoken to Robert Paul and was thus now aware that, contrary to previous reports, and what appeared to have been said at the inquest that day, two men had actually discovered the body and, it was believed, had informed PC Neil of this fact. Thus, according to the Weekly Dispatch of 2 Sept:

"One of them remained by her while the other found Constable Neil."

It was an understandable error. Paul had told the reporter that he and the other man had directed a constable to the body and, knowing that Neil had said he found the body, the reporter assumed that Paul and the other man must have spoken to PC Neil in Bucks Row.

As we know, LWN also carried allegations that the constable had ignored Paul's plea to go to Bucks Row but had carried on knocking up.

We do not have any actual knowledge of what happened on the Sunday but it is apparent that PC Neil (or someone at the police on his behalf) was questioned by a reporter because the Times carried the following on the morning Monday 3 Sept:

"It is not true, says Constable Neil, who is a man of nearly 20 years' service, that he was called to the body by two men. He came upon it as he walked, and flashing his lantern to examine it, he was answered by the lights from two other constables at either end of the street. These officers had seen no man leaving the spot to attract attention, and the mystery is most complete."

What we do not see here is Neil - or the police representative - saying that no, Neil wasn't called to the body by two men, it's all very simple, this was PC Mizen. This fact did not emerge in public until Mizen (and Cross) gave evidence to the inquest during Monday morning.

No doubt the investigating officers had managed to speak to Mizen before this and it is true we don't know when. Nor do we know when or how they located Cross, or when he came forward, nor do we know when they located Paul.

But I would submit that what the above shows is that the police were initially confused as to who first found the body and that it was this that they would have been attempting to resolve on Sunday, or early Monday at the latest. The issue of who said what to who was, I would also submit, not even on the agenda and, as we know, it was only a question from a jury member that extracted a denial from Cross that he had said anything to Mizen about a policeman.

That's the way I see it anyway.

[pinkmoon]

Any of these hats would have kept him free of suspicion :

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/...at-Royal-Ascot

I think he would better suited to pastel blue it wouldn't clash with his skin tone in the poor light.

[Simon Wood]

Hi David,

Long posts are most often in inverse proportion to their logic.

I explained myself with precision.

PC Mizen lied to place PC Neil where he should have been, but wasn't, when Cross and Paul walked from Bucks Row, through Great Eastern Square and up Bakers Row to the corner of Hanbury Street.

Cross's story about not seeing a policeman prior to encountering PC Mizen was borne out by PC Neil himself.

Why else would PC Mizen make it up?

Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

Hi David,

Long posts are most often in inverse proportion to their logic.

I explained myself with precision.

PC Mizen lied to place PC Neil where he should have been, but wasn't, when Cross and Paul walked from Bucks Row, through Great Eastern Square and up Bakers Row to the corner of Hanbury Street.

Cross's story about not seeing a policeman prior to encountering PC Mizen was borne out by PC Neil himself.

Why else would PC Mizen make it up?

Hi Simon, your post is certainly short but I'm having difficulty seeing the logic. Neil's beat evidently took him half an hour to patrol (i.e. "He had been round the same place some half an hour previous to that and did not see any one" - Times inquest report) so why would he have had to have been there in the few minutes that Cross and Paul were there? Had Mizen found the body, having been directed to Buck's Row by Paul and Cross, all Neil would have had to say is that he had been there at 3:20, saw nothing, and was due back at 3:50 hence he missed the discovery by Paul and Cross (at 3:40) and by Mizen (at 3:45). You also say nothing of Thain, who I asked you about. He said he came to the scene, saw Neil and was sent to fetch a doctor. Who do you say asked him to do this? Mizen? Who then asked Mizen to fetch an ambulance?

As for your final question "Why else would PC Mizen make it up?" I assume this is a joke.