Lets get Lechmere off the hook!

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I can agree that the car men were at the murder site for a very short time, although I think a 15 seconds estimate might be a little too short. I would have thought about a minute.

Here is the first person account of the Cross testimony according to The Evening Standard:

"I bent over her head, and touched her hand, which was cold. I said, "She is dead." The other man, after he had felt her heart, said, Yes, she is." he then suggested that we should shift her, but I said, "No, let us go and tell a policeman." When I found her clothes were up above her knees, we tried to pull them over her, but they did not seem as if they would come down. I did not notice any blood.".

So Cross could see her hand and bent over her head to touch it. Paul could see where her heart was located and was close enough to touch it. They were both close enough to attempt to adjust her clothing. I can appreciate that they may have not seen the small pool of blood on a cobblestone pavement, but gaping wounds in her neck?

I put no stock in the gap theory. Even if Cross was first spotted "where the woman was", that's not inconsistent with discovering a body. The conversation with Mizen could have been a breakdown in communication. What I find peculiar is that neither man heard the other's footfalls, and neither man saw the gaping wounds in the neck when they were so close to her. Peculiar circumstances are interesting to discuss, but they don't constitute evidence against anyone. However, there is no actual evidence against any of the named suspects.

Best regards, George

Hi George,

Just to be clear, the 15 or so seconds I mentioned was just referring to the time examining Mary, not the whole of their encounter (i.e. stopping, waiting for Paul, approaching him, and then moving to the body isn't included). Anyway, I could be making it too short, but even what's described above could just be "crouch down, a touch, pull down the dress" stand and leave, with the conversational bits occurring simultaneous with that. And, of course, given when they are recounting these things they now know she wasn't just drunk, but dead with throat cut and abdominal wounds, etc, their telling of what they did will be influenced by that. They may have done very little actual "inspection", but they will present what they did in the best possible light.

I do think something struck them as unusual about the situation as it takes something to get people to start even considering "hmmm, maybe they were dead?". That's just not the sort of idea that people consider, so something must have struck them as decidedly strange, but not to the point they were positive (i.e., they didn't see the blood or injuries).

Anyway, like you, not seeing the wound to her throat seems to me like they could not have spent much time at all in her actual vicinity, and that their presentation of their "well fare check" might tend to make it sound like they did more than they did, or at least spent more time doing it. It strikes me that perhaps what we're dealing with is simply a very quick crouching to touch, tug the dress down, and walk off. And if they're talking while doing that, their attention might not be fully on the body in front of them, so they're not really inspecting her.

I don't mean they're deliberately lying. I do think they checked her (pulling down her dress, for example), and describing a brief action one does often does make the actions sound a bit more extensive.

Anyway, I admit it's just an idea, and could just reflect me trying to find a way to make sense of how they didn't see her throat injury. Perhaps I'm over thinking it, and it was simply the case that given the lighting came from the other side of the street and so cast deeper shadows on the side of the body where the wounds were? I believe PC Neil required his lamp to see the injuries? Or am I mis-remembering that?

- Jeff

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

Just to be clear, the 15 or so seconds I mentioned was just referring to the time examining Mary, not the whole of their encounter (i.e. stopping, waiting for Paul, approaching him, and then moving to the body isn't included). Anyway, I could be making it too short, but even what's described above could just be "crouch down, a touch, pull down the dress" stand and leave, with the conversational bits occurring simultaneous with that. And, of course, given when they are recounting these things they now know she wasn't just drunk, but dead with throat cut and abdominal wounds, etc, their telling of what they did will be influenced by that. They may have done very little actual "inspection", but they will present what they did in the best possible light.

I do think something struck them as unusual about the situation as it takes something to get people to start even considering "hmmm, maybe they were dead?". That's just not the sort of idea that people consider, so something must have struck them as decidedly strange, but not to the point they were positive (i.e., they didn't see the blood or injuries).

Anyway, like you, not seeing the wound to her throat seems to me like they could not have spent much time at all in her actual vicinity, and that their presentation of their "well fare check" might tend to make it sound like they did more than they did, or at least spent more time doing it. It strikes me that perhaps what we're dealing with is simply a very quick crouching to touch, tug the dress down, and walk off. And if they're talking while doing that, their attention might not be fully on the body in front of them, so they're not really inspecting her.

I don't mean they're deliberately lying. I do think they checked her (pulling down her dress, for example), and describing a brief action one does often does make the actions sound a bit more extensive.

Anyway, I admit it's just an idea, and could just reflect me trying to find a way to make sense of how they didn't see her throat injury. Perhaps I'm over thinking it, and it was simply the case that given the lighting came from the other side of the street and so cast deeper shadows on the side of the body where the wounds were? I believe PC Neil required his lamp to see the injuries? Or am I mis-remembering that?

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Your memory is fine - Neil did need his lamp to examine her injuries.

A thought occurred to me that perhaps the car men overstated their activities and attention around the body at the inquest to avoid being thought of as heartless in abandoning a woman in distress in order to be on time for their jobs. If their investigation was perfunctory, that would explain their missing obvious details.

Best regards, George

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Your memory is fine - Neil did need his lamp to examine her injuries.

That's a relief! Or maybe just luck, but I'll take what I can get.

A thought occurred to me that perhaps the car men overstated their activities and attention around the body at the inquest to avoid being thought of as heartless in abandoning a woman in distress in order to be on time for their jobs. If their investigation was perfunctory, that would explain their missing obvious details.

Best regards, George

I suppose they could have (over-stated), but I don't really get the impression they are deliberately trying to sound like they did more than they actually did. Rather, it seems to me that because they did so little, they can describe every action, and as a result, it sounds like it lasted longer. After all, they never say how long things took, and unfortunately nobody asked. But, I sort of thought, "how long would it take to crouch down, touch a hand, then try to pull down a dress during which your hand brushes against the chest?" and really, that's about 10-15 seconds of activity, maybe even less. The "intentions", like "listening for breathing", etc, don't take time as they just indicate either their motivation for doing the actions, or something they were also doing at the time (listening). Or, even, something they noted after the fact, perhaps when they heard she was murdered - i.e I didn't hear any breathing now that I come to think of it, type thing. That could easily come out as saying they didn't hear any breathing, but really, at the time they may not have actually been listening for it. So, a sort of over-stating, but more of a comment of what they recall (or don't recall perhaps) getting melded in to the event.

But yes, I do get the impression their "investigation" was very perfunctory, and the idea it was more than that really comes from us, I think, reading more into their actual statements then they say because doing what they say they did could be done in a very short time, in my opinion. It wouldn't surprise me if it took longer for Cross/Lechmere to convince Paul to "come over and have a look with me" then the actual "looking" took.

Again, I want to stress this is just my interpretation and impression, obviously it is the kind of thing one would need to ask the two men in order to clear up, something that is clearly no longer possible. But, I suspect the police would have asked them, and perhaps this explains why there doesn't appear to be any issue with regards to them not noticing her wounds? Rather, it is more about establishing that they didn't see her wounds for the inquest and not worrying about the details as to why they didn't (that would become important if a trial were to follow, which of course it never did).

- Jeff

[Geddy2112]

Im currently reading Carroty Nell by John E. Keene and I noticed from the Mackenzie murder that Andrews found her body at 12.50. He blew his whistle and Sgt Badham arrived moments later and told Andrews to stay with the body while he went for help. Fifteen minutes after that Inspector Reid arrived to find blood still seeping from the throat wound. So, even if she was killed just 5 minutes before Andrews found her body this meant that blood was still seeping from her wound over 20 minutes later.

How can anyone try to claim that Cross was the likeliest killer? The killer could have been back home by the time that Cross arrived.

Exactly, I'm sure, without checking there is some 'rain' evidence in that case to prove suchlike. The ground was dry underneath so they could accurately tell from that when she was murdered.

[FrankO]

If his ear was close enough to Polly's nose and mouth to try to detect breathing, shouldn't he have noticed the two gashes in her throat? Llewellyn said the 8" gash was 2" wide.

Was it was too dark? It is being alleged that there was enough light for Cross to be able to discern that the shape in the darkness was the body of a woman from a distance of 4 metres or more, but Paul couldn't see this horrendous wound from a distance of a few inches?

Hi George,

While I agree it does seem strange that Paul didn't notice the cuts to the throat, wouldn't the same sort of thing go for not seeing the eyes were wide open, as per Neil's testimony? Of course, the eyes were smaller than the wounds, but still.

Cheers,
Frank

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

The St James Gazette and The Times, in their Sep 18 coverage of the inquest, recorded Paul as having testified:

"He knelt down to see if he could hear her breathe, but could not".

If his ear was close enough to Polly's nose and mouth to try to detect breathing, shouldn't he have noticed the two gashes in her throat? Llewellyn said the 8" gash was 2" wide.

Was it was too dark? It is being alleged that there was enough light for Cross to be able to discern that the shape in the darkness was the body of a woman from a distance of 4 metres or more, but Paul couldn't see this horrendous wound from a distance of a few inches? Without judging anyone's role in this murder, but simple weighing the logic of the evidence, I struggle to judge this as credible.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

Llewellyn’s at the inquest did mention that it was dark as he was discussing examining the victim’s chest so I can only assume that he did this to explain why he couldn’t give a more detailed examination or explanation of the body but don’t really see an issue with discerning the general shape of a woman as he got closer to the body although I do understand and your reservation. I imagine that her clothing, even seen from a few feet away, would have marked her out as a woman but the position that she lay in combined with the neck area of her clothing, the darkness plus the fact that by placing an ear near to her mouth Cross or Paul would have been looking away from her, would have meant that they didn’t see the neck wounds.

Saying that, it’s not impossible that both Paul and Cross realised that she was dead due to those neck injuries but decided not to mention this to a Constable because neither wanted to be made late for work. It might seem callous but if she was already dead there was nothing that anyone could do and money and a job were at a premium at that time and especially in that area. If questioned later it would have left them open to the same question that you are asking George: “did neither of you really not see her neck wounds?” By making himself known via Lloyd’s Paul couldn’t have been worried about this.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi George,

While obviously what follows is entirely speculative, it seems to me that given Cross/Lechmere and Paul have to leave the crime scene and get to PC Mizen before PC Neil shows up, with their arrival at PC Mizen and PC Neil's discovery of the body both occurring at 3:45 (or close enough to make no difference), and the distance between the crime scene and PC Mizen would take them around 4 minutes or so, placing their departure around 3:41ish (all times subject to error of course), there's a lot of pointers towards their "examination" being far more cursory than perhaps they are willing to outright say. Even Paul's attempt to pull her dress down goes no further than pulling it down until he is met with some resistance, probably due to the underside of her dress being caught up under her body a bit, so it's not like he put a great deal of effort into it.

It is during that dress fixing that, in some accounts, he says he thinks he detected a slight flutter of movement in her chest. The "hearing her breath" could be a news-rephrasing of "feeling her breath" (I note the above press statement is in the 3rd person, so it's not presented as a quote by Paul, rather a summary by the reporter who wrote it).

Anyway, all things considered, I rather suspect the two of them spent as little as 10-15 seconds actually next to the body, doing nothing more than the dress fixing (which would also be when he may have felt her to be cold). The rest is just them talking about what to do, which would be them standing, and not necessarily right by the body. I could see them discussing what to do, deciding to do very little other than go find the police, and Paul just goes over to pull her dress down a bit, finds it's a bit stuck, and leaves.

Something like that would account for them not noticing her throat wound and the blood. Otherwise, the longer one suggests they are right next to the body, the weirder it becomes that they didn't notice her throat injury (which clearly they didn't).

I don't mean to suggest that either Paul and/or Cross/Lechmere is lying about what they did or talked about. Rather, I think they could have done everything they said in a very short amount of time, and perhaps we're over estimating just how long they were actually there. I'm thinking the amount of time they remained after Cross/Lechmere first stops Paul is probably far shorter than is often presumed.

Mind you, I've been wrong before, will be again, and could be now.

- Jeff

Hello Jeff,

A point that has been made in the past is concerned with the alleged callousness of our two witnesses and your suggestion of a brief check is in the same territory. Firstly, what more could they really have done? One suggests trying to prop her up but the other objects (we get differing Press versions of who was pro that suggestion and who was against.) Apart from that, these two aren’t medically trained and pretty much immediately they would have both thought the same thing - that a Constable was required. Their first priority, selfish though it might seem by today’s standards, was to get to work, and to get to work on time. I’d suggest that your 10-15 seconds was probably about right. A we have to stress that they were both there side by side. One couldn’t pull the wool over the others eyes.

[Geddy2112]

Didn't Paul suggest he felt a heart beat? Did he take her pulse or detect this with is ear to her chest?

I've obviously looked into the murder of Polly a great deal and I still find it rather odd that someone who has, according to them had their eyes or ears so close to someone's mouth has not noticed they are nearly decapitated. I also find the quote about the clothes being up to her stomach rather odd, which of course is just below your ribs. Surely if this was the case then the huge gash to her abdomen would have been visible.

I'm not 100% sure if when Paul and Cross found her she'd only been strangled and Jack was hiding behind the locked gate of Brown's Yard or somewhere else. (Could he have opened the gate and locked it from the inside?) Or that a huge amount of exaggeration on behalf of the press has been printed in the Newspapers to sensationalise the murder. We know even today the journos are economical with the truth. I mean just look at all the Newspaper reports from when Lechmere got named as a suspect or the recent ones about Edwards' Shawl.

Something certainly does not add up for sure.

[Doctored Whatsit]

He and the man examined the body, and he felt sure he detected faint indications of breathing. Daily News 18/9, Woodford Times 21/9


Felt sure" isn’t exactly "I guess I could be wrong," right? It’s more like saying, “I’m pretty confident this is the best pizza in town,” not, "Well, I think it’s pizza, but maybe it’s just dough with some cheese."


Speaking of selectivity...



The Baron

The problem with quoting from newspapers, as we all know, is that they are inclined to produce slightly different versions of events. The Times quotes Paul as saying "he fancied" he felt a slight movement, this is totally different from "he felt sure". So we need to look at the abundance of other evidence to seek the more likely statement.

On the day of the murder, with the memory fresh in his mind, Paul is reported as saying to Mizen, "the woman was dead. The woman was so cold that she must have been dead for some time ... If she had been lying there long enough to get so cold as she was when I saw her, it shows that no policeman on the beat had been down there for a long time". So you believe that they printed that after he told them that he was sure she was still alive?

Other newspapers quote similar beliefs or possibilities about his observation, and not a certainty, and in any event, he clearly changed his mind. To back up his story that he told Mizen that Nichols was dead, Cross also reported that Paul said she was dead.

We should always look at the whole of the evidence, and reach conclusions or opinions based on the overall picture, instead of basing a judgement on one tiny point in one newspaper, which differs from the others, and doesn't make sense as part of the whole scenario.

[Geddy2112]

On the day of the murder, with the memory fresh in his mind, Paul is reported as saying to Mizen, "the woman was dead. The woman was so cold that she must have been dead for some time ... If she had been lying there long enough to get so cold as she was when I saw her, it shows that no policeman on the beat had been down there for a long time". So you believe that they printed that after he told them that he was sure she was still alive?

How can that be right? Paul never spoke to Mizen remember, he was out of earshot of Cross lying to the Policeman...

[JeffHamm]

Hello Jeff,

A point that has been made in the past is concerned with the alleged callousness of our two witnesses and your suggestion of a brief check is in the same territory. Firstly, what more could they really have done? One suggests trying to prop her up but the other objects (we get differing Press versions of who was pro that suggestion and who was against.) Apart from that, these two aren’t medically trained and pretty much immediately they would have both thought the same thing - that a Constable was required. Their first priority, selfish though it might seem by today’s standards, was to get to work, and to get to work on time. I’d suggest that your 10-15 seconds was probably about right. A we have to stress that they were both there side by side. One couldn’t pull the wool over the others eyes.

Hi Herlock,

I make no morality judgement about their actions, but if pressed, would suggest they did far more than most would. It would not surprise me one bit if a number of others had walked passed her without so much as a thought about checking in her at all. Even today, people will walk past a drunk sleeping in the street without checking on them. As you say, what more could they do? Given they did not see her wounds, they did all they could, and what they could do would take little time In my opinion.

- Jeff

[The Baron]

The problem with quoting from newspapers, as we all know, is that they are inclined to produce slightly different versions of events. The Times quotes Paul as saying "he fancied" he felt a slight movement, this is totally different from "he felt sure". So we need to look at the abundance of other evidence to seek the more likely statement.

On the day of the murder, with the memory fresh in his mind, Paul is reported as saying to Mizen, "the woman was dead. The woman was so cold that she must have been dead for some time ... If she had been lying there long enough to get so cold as she was when I saw her, it shows that no policeman on the beat had been down there for a long time". So you believe that they printed that after he told them that he was sure she was still alive?

Other newspapers quote similar beliefs or possibilities about his observation, and not a certainty, and in any event, he clearly changed his mind. To back up his story that he told Mizen that Nichols was dead, Cross also reported that Paul said she was dead.

We should always look at the whole of the evidence, and reach conclusions or opinions based on the overall picture, instead of basing a judgement on one tiny point in one newspaper, which differs from the others, and doesn't make sense as part of the whole scenario.

The classic maneuver, dismissing inconvenient evidence as insignificant “tiny points,” while wrapping it all in a tidy package labeled “the whole of the evidence.” Convenient, isn’t it?

But the problem here is glaring: if we abandon every detail that complicates the narrative, we are not building a picture of events, we are painting over it entirely!

"Fancied” in 19th century parlance didn’t mean idle whimsy. It meant he perceived, believed, detected something real, subtle, but tangible enough for him to feel compelled to act. That’s worlds apart from dismissing it as a flight of fancy.

Now, about Paul allegedly “changing his mind” later, this isn’t some ironclad contradiction, it’s a man simplifying matters under other circumstance, is it shocking he’d lead with the conclusion instead of inviting a philosophical debate about life and death?

Of course not. And yet, you frame this as if it invalidates his earlier observations. It doesn’t. It only underscores the fluidity of human reactions in a chaotic, grim situation.

Let's not pretend this is a case of wild invention. Are we to believe they simply fabricated the "felt sure" account out of thin air? Unlikely. If Paul had been adamant she was unquestionably dead from the start, there would’ve been no reason for any paper to introduce the idea of detected breathing, unless you think victorian journalists were time-traveling modern tabloid writers.

Paul’s statement about detecting breathing, whether he "felt sure" or "fancied" it, was reported. We can debate linguistic nuances all day, but the core point doesn’t vanish into the ether just because you’d prefer it did.

The “whole of the evidence” doesn’t mean discarding pieces that don’t fit your preferred narrative. It means grappling with all of it, including the messy, contradictory, and uncomfortable parts. Pretending otherwise is not analysis, it’s denial.



The Baron

[rjpalmer]

Given they did not see her wounds

Unlike some others here, I don't find it incredible or suspicious that they didn't see the wounds. Three constables, a medical man, and the horse slaughterers were all at the scene shortly afterwards with every opportunity to judge the ambient lighting conditions (far better than we can ever hope) and none of them 'called out' or challenged Cross or Paul on their inability to see the neck wound.

Due to the so-called "Purkinje Effect," our eyes don't see longer wavelengths in the dark, and red is the hardest color of all to see--we don't have the 'rods' for it, and brown isn't much better.

Her frock was brown. If she's flat on her back, with the light source nothing more than distant gaslight, her neck is going to be in a recess between her head and her chest. Her neck, the wound, the color of blood, the collar and upper portion of her brown dress could easily have all been one indistinct blotch of monochrome.

And if either Paul or Cross could see the neck wound the other would have seen it, too, so if they're lying, they are in cahoots about not seeing it, which I find difficult to accept.

[Doctored Whatsit]

The classic maneuver, dismissing inconvenient evidence as insignificant “tiny points,” while wrapping it all in a tidy package labeled “the whole of the evidence.” Convenient, isn’t it?


The “whole of the evidence” doesn’t mean discarding pieces that don’t fit your preferred narrative. It means grappling with all of it, including the messy, contradictory, and uncomfortable parts. Pretending otherwise is not analysis, it’s denial.


The Baron

Er ... actually, you are dismissing the bulk of the evidence which points clearly in one direction, in favour of one discrepancy which suits your preferred narrative, and allows you to play the devil's advocate. There aren't any obvious messy uncomfortable parts, just the usual inability of all of the press to report in exactly the same way, which happens. We then go with the mainstream, and accept they are probably more accurate. The police didn't query Paul's evidence, did they?

[Doctored Whatsit]

How can that be right? Paul never spoke to Mizen remember, he was out of earshot of Cross lying to the Policeman...

Oh yes, I keep forgetting that is what Christer told me!