The Lechmere trail - so far

[Fisherman]

caz: Do you mean what he called himself for the electoral register? That would have been in a householder context, wouldn't it? Not in a police witness context, in any case. We know he was officially a Lechmere, Fisherman. Have you seen any Lechmere documents, or personal correspondence, relating more to his work or life outside the home, which could help rule out the possibility of his friends or associates ever knowing him as Charlie Cross? A letter to the London Hospital, perhaps, asking to attend a local dissection and signed Chas Lechmere?

I do not hold the documents - Edward does. I could ask him. I´m sure you´d be ever so pleased to rule the cross name out! especilly since it is such a good suggestion that he used Lechmere was a householders head name only!!

Yes, I can imagine it now. The police decide to confirm with Pickfords that their witness Charles Cross works there and they draw a complete blank. Going through the record of many hundreds of names, getting increasingly pissed off with their elusive carman (see what I did there?), the police eventually find one Charles Allen Lechmere and join the dots. When they knock on his door to ask why he royally messed them about by giving them a false name, he says he thought it would make a nice change to call himself Cross after his dear old departed step dad. What a wheeze. That would have gone down like a cup of cold sick, so it was a bit of luck no checks were ever made.

Actually, there was no better alternative if he wanted to use an alias that he did have ties to. How good or bad the plan was would be down to the result, basically, but whenever I point that out, it is said that I use circular reasoning.

I wouldn't know, Fisherman. I have never been happier, which is possibly because I don't relate to emotions like bitterness, regret, jealousy or neediness. I only feel sad for those who do.

That´s very noble of you. Me, I resent weak people (yes, that WAS a joke).

[Fisherman]

Okay. I tend to think it took what Prosector - a professional - says it took. And there is nothing at present to suggest Lechmere had what it took.

I only suggested you consult Prosector so you wouldn't just be taking my word for what he says on the subject.

Love,

Caz
X

I would definitely take your word on what anybody said. You have never given me reason not to.

So what DID he say it took?

Annie Chapman was sickly and tired and getting on agewise (at least her age meant that she was getting on back then). Eddowes was a thin, smallish woman, equally aging.

I am intrigued to hear why Prosector thinks they would have been hard to kill silently. Do tell!

[Fisherman]

Okay. I decided to put my life on hold last night, utilize the information on this site, pull out some old books, see what I could find, what further questions I could come up with and throw out there. Here's the first:

At 2:30AM Mary Ann Nichols meets Emily Holland, who was returning from watching the Shadwell Dry Dock fire, outside of a grocer's shop on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street. Polly had come down Osborn Street. Holland describes her as "very drunk and staggered against the wall." Holland calls attention to the church clock striking 2:30. Polly tells Emily that she had had her doss money three times that day and had drunk it away. She says she will return to Flower and Dean Street where she could share a bed with a man after one more attempt to find trade. "I've had my doss money three times today and spent it." She says, "It won't be long before I'm back." The two women talk for seven or eight minutes. Polly leaves walking east down Whitechapel Road.

PC John Thain passes down Buck's Row at 3:15AM. He sees nothing unusual. At approximately the same time Sgt. Kirby passes down Buck's Row and reports the same.

So, we know that Nichols was alive and at the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road talking with Emily Holland at 2:30AM. She left Holland, drunk and headed east down Whitechapel Road.

Thus, we know that Nichols had not met her killer at 2:30AM. Holland does not see her approached by anyone as she heads east on Whitechapel Road. We know with near certainty, also, that she was alive at 3:15AM when Thain and Kirby passed the spot where her body would be discovered 25 to 30 minutes later.

It’s clear from the blood evidence she was murdered where she was found. Blood had pooled beneath her. There was no blood found leading to/away from the spot. She was led to the spot in Buck’s Row and killed there.

I think it’s also reasonable to assume that she was relatively at ease and unsuspecting when she was murdered. Mr. Purkiss and Mrs. Green stated they heard nothing unusual. Obviously, Nichols met her killer between the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road and the spot on which she was murdered. It’s likely she was accompanied to that spot by her killer.

We have a little more of an hour of her time unaccounted for. It's reasonable reasonable to assume that she spent some significant amount of this time with her killer. Further, if Nichols stated she would soon have her doss money, where would she have headed that would have allowed her to quickly do so? I don’t think that would be in Buck’s Row.

I think that Buck’s Row is where they went to transact business. So, where is she most likely to have met her killer? Who knows the area (circa 1888) between Osborn/Whitechapel corner and Buck's Row? I can't find enough detail to know what was there, business, pubs, dwellings, etc.

Fish, does the Cross scenario have her meeting Cross on the spot? If that’s the case, why was Nichols in Buck’s Row? If not, did Cross take another route to work that day and lead Nichols’ into Buck’s Row? It does not seem like a likely spot to quickly earn one's doss money.

First of all, you are confusing Thain with Neil - just saying!

The nearby venue to Buck´s Row where prostitutes could be found was Whitechapel Road. It was a minutes walk from, say, the intersection Brady Street/Bucks Row.

You say that it is reasonable to assume that Nichoos spent the last hour leading up to her death with her killer. I actually disagree. Such a thing would put the killer at risk of being seen and later on identified. And we have the Mitre Square murder, where we know that a lot less time was available to spend in company with the killer on the victim´s behalf.

To my mind, there is another possibility that is a better solution to the enigma: she had time to procure and service one or more other clients before she ran into the Ripper. And she may well have used the door leading into Browns on every occasion, meaning that she may have been in Bucks Row when the killer first saw her, either with a client or after a client had left her.

So it´s basically a toss-up between Whitechapel Road or Bucks Row. They both work for me.

[Fisherman]

Mary Ann Nichols’ body was found in Buck’s Row at 3:40AM or 3:45AM by Charles Cross (Lechmere). Cross stated that he was walking along the Essex Wharf side of Buck’s Row when he saw something lying against the gates leading to the stables next to New Cottage. It was dark. A street light shining at the end of the row did not provide sufficient light for him to identify the shape. “I could not tell in the dark what it was at first; it looked to me like a tarpaulin sheet, but stepping into the road, I saw that it was the body of a woman. Just then I heard a man (Robert Paul) about 40 yards off approaching from the direction that I myself had come from. I waited for the man, who started to one side as if afraid that I meant to knock him down. I said, “Come and look over here, there’s a woman.”

Paul went with Cross. It was too dark for either man to see any blood. The woman’s clothes were raised almost to her stomach. Her bonnet was off and lay close to her head. Cross felt her hands, which were cold and limp. Paul felt her face and found it warm. Paul felt for a heartbeat and thought he detected a faint movement. “I think she’s breathing but it’s very little if she is”, he said. Paul wanted to move the body but Cross refused to touch her. The two men, now late for work, decided to try to find a policeman.

We know that at the time Cross and Paul were examining Nichols, her throat had been cut twice. One cut was four inches long and one eight inches long; both cuts reached through to the vertebrae.

This means that both the left and right carotid arteries were severed. It means, also, that both sets of jugular veins were severed. Dr. Llewellyn states that he felt the murderer had faced her, held his right hand across her mouth and cut her throat with his left hand.

It’s difficult to argue that the killer would have been covered in blood. Instantaneously cutting the throat to near decapitation would create a copious blood spurt. There would be no continuous spray as you may find with nicked carotid artery, but the instantaneous release of pressure would create a fountain of blood that would quickly lose pressure. If she was killed in the manner described by Llewellyn, her killer would have been - again - covered in blood.

Yet, Cross feels comfortable approaching Paul and speaking with the police (it’s reasonable to assume that Mizen shined his light on Cross and Paul as they spoke).

To me, this blood evidence seems to clear Cross.

Imagine, Patrick, that what you describe actually happened in Bucks Row - a fountain of blood was released from Nichols´ neck, showering the killer with blood.

Now, take in the rest of the evidence:

How much blood was there on the pavement? There was a smallish pool, a few inches in diameter, holding perhaps half a pint at the most.

How much blood was there on the front of Nichols´ clothes? None. Not a speck of it.

How does that rhyme with the fountain of blood? The obvious answer is that it misrhymes badly with it.

Llewellyn was of the meaning that the abdominal wounds came first, as show by Baxters summary after the inquest. Llewellyn said that the veins and arteries had been emptied of their blood and that this blood had collected in the loose tissues. Of the abdomen, naturally.


Nichols was strangled - or nearly strangled - before she was cut. Her heart may have stopped before she was cut. But even if it did, cutting the neck first would cause a flood of blood pouring out onto the street, with some pressure behind it (not all of the pressure goes away when the heart stops). So the only really credible thing to believe is that Llewellyn was correct - after the strangulation (or near strangulation) the killer cut her in the belly, resulting in her blood sinking into the abdominal cavity.
Then, as a coup de grace, he finished off by cutting her neck.
Conpare, if you will, Tabram, where Killeen said that she lived throughout the first 38 stabs and cuts. Only thereafter did the killer deliver the coup de grace by means of a thrust through the breastbone with a sturdier weapon.

[Fisherman]

This makes sense if the killer would have done more to the body had someone not come along when they did.

En effet, Caz, BOTH your ghost killer and my real one were disturbed, so they are on equal footing there (if a ghost foot can be on any footing at all).

[Fisherman]

Great point Patrick
One that I myself have brought up in the past and challenged Fish with. I'll let him respond though.

My take is that if lech was the killer, with killing on his mind that night, he may have ventured around a bit onbto whitechapel road where he encountered her and then both went into bucks row.

or, at some point she herself ventured into bucks row.

with all the timings to consider-she may have wandered around whitechapel road for a while, not found any clients, thus no doss money thus no where to sleep and vetured into bucks row (off the main road) after the police had passed by, to find somewhere to crash. perhaps lech came upon her dozing, (reclined with her back against the building.)

Possible, of course - but the gates offered precious little shelter, so I am not all that keen on the suggestion.

[Patrick S]

First of all, you are confusing Thain with Neil - just saying!

The nearby venue to Buck´s Row where prostitutes could be found was Whitechapel Road. It was a minutes walk from, say, the intersection Brady Street/Bucks Row.

You say that it is reasonable to assume that Nichoos spent the last hour leading up to her death with her killer. I actually disagree. Such a thing would put the killer at risk of being seen and later on identified. And we have the Mitre Square murder, where we know that a lot less time was available to spend in company with the killer on the victim´s behalf.

To my mind, there is another possibility that is a better solution to the enigma: she had time to procure and service one or more other clients before she ran into the Ripper. And she may well have used the door leading into Browns on every occasion, meaning that she may have been in Bucks Row when the killer first saw her, either with a client or after a client had left her.

So it´s basically a toss-up between Whitechapel Road or Bucks Row. They both work for me.

Well. I'm not confusing Thain with Neil.

According to Begg (Jack the Ripper: The Facts) page 46: "At 3:15AM PC John Thain, 96J, passed the entrance to Buck's Row on his beatand PC John Neil, 97J, pass the slaughterhouse in Winthrop Street, where he saw Harry Tomkins and another horse slaughterer named James Mumford at work. PC Neil passed on and walked into and down Buck's Row. He did not see anything unusual or suspcious. About the same time Sergeant Kirby also passed down Buck's Row. He too saw nothing to arouse his suspicions."

Since the relevant fact was the 3:15AM time given, I chose - in the interest of brevity - to list the first and last individuals to have passed Buck's Row at approximately 3:15AM.

[Fisherman]

[QUOTE=Harry D;351603]Fair enough, Fish.

You say that Lechmere "fits the bill". I assume you are only talking in regards to proximity here?

I am talking very much about the time issue knit to the bloodflow, actually.

Apart from the fact he found the body (or was found with the body, if you'd prefer ), there isn't anything to suggest that he was the killer. Paul was not far behind Lechmere, correct? If we took Lechmere out of the equation, would it then follow that Paul is the likeliest suspect?

Yes, it would, provided that Paul could also be shown to have been alone with the body for an undefined measure of time.

Then again, we have the benefit of hindsight, so we know that Paul arrived after the dead body was found. Ergo, he is not a suspect, other than in VERY convoluted schemes!

Name a better suspect? William Bury. Lived in the area, was an abusive drunk, murdered his wife and mutilated her body. Can he be placed definitively at the scene of the crime like Lechmere? Not as far as I know, but can Lechmere definitively be proven as anything less than an honest family man?

Those are different questions, Harry, and not comparable from a forensic point of view. The police don´t start out by looking at violent person living in a city where a violent murder has been perpetrated if they have somebody they know has been found with the victim and with no alibi clearing them.

A murder investigation is first and foremost a practical matter, not a guessing game where only people with former records of crime are viable as contenders for the murderers title. From a forensic point of view, Bury is actually in the clear, since he cannot be proven to have been within ten miles of the murder spot on the night.
Lechmere, however, is tied forensically to the murder spot. He was found with the body, and the only alibi he has presented was designed by himself and stands uncorroborated.

The way you look upon things we may just as well clear people standing with a smoking gun over bodies with bullet holes in them - provided that these people had no former records with the police.

Would you have us look for a known shooter instead, Harry?

Of course, Lechmere had no smoking gun. But the blodflow and coagulation indicated that he was quite possibly the killer. And a lot of anomalies attached to him.

Many things can be smoking guns...

[Fisherman]

As far as the blood "evidence" goes: I'm confused as to why more hasn't been made about Nichols being drunk since alcohol acts as a blood thinner and reduces blood clotting,

"Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., discovered that the alcohol equivalent of two drinks decreases the clumping together of platelets, cells that are essential to blood clotting."

Given that she was drunk around an hour before death if not slightly more, this might indicate a thinning effect of her blood at the crime scene. To try and establish any type of "evidence" off of how the blood was congealed is just impossible.

If anything the "evidence" might suggest she was dead for longer than thought because of the body showing signs of congealing at all. At the least it is completely irrelevant and at most horribly inconclusive.

Blood coagulates slower if you have been drinking. True enough.

But blood coagulates quicker if you are an alcoholic! The run a larger risk of bloodclots than the balanced drinkers.

I presented a number of surveys to this effect in an earlier answer, but I cannot rmember whether if it was on these boards or on JTR - peole are showering me with questions.

Anyhow, alcoholics will have more quickly coagulating blood than the average drinker. And lo and behold - 30 minutes after Lechmere left the body, the blood was a "congealed mass".

Now, what was that you wrote - "completely irrelevant and at most horribly inconclusive", was it?

I only wish you had read up before, Dane. It would have looked a lot better.

[Fisherman]

we have no sightings or descriptions that fit Lechmere at any of the other scenes.

Amazing. I have only seen what he looked like in 1912. On what do you base your observation, Dane?

[Fisherman]

To be fair there had to have been some blood found on her front in that her abdomen was mutilated. I can find nothing that reference either the presence or abscence of blood on the front Nichols (body or clothes). At the scene, there is this description:

Mizen, Thain, and Neil put the body aboard the ambulance. Moving the body revealed a spot of congealed blood about six inches in diameter, which had run toward the gutter. PC thain also noticed a lot blood on the back of the body and assumed that this had run down from the neck. He got a lot of blood on his hands when lifting the body into the ambulance.

I agree that Nichols was choked, either to unconsciousness or death. I've always assumed the former. I don't subscribe to the punching as witness at Buck's Row and Hanbury Street likely would have heard a victim cry out while being beaten. Even if Nichols was dead when her throat was cut there would still be some spray/spurt as there is still pressure within the carotid artery. I find it unrealistic that Cross could have killed Nichols in the manner in which she was killed, mutilated her corpse, remained free of blood on his person, was able to hide the murder weapon on his person, and then interact with Paul and Mizen without arousing the suspicons of either.

A full postmortem occurred at 10:00AM. Dr. Llewellyn and his assistant found the following injuries:

A bruise on the right side of the face (made by a fist or pressure from a thumb)

A circular bruise on the left side of the face (probably also caused by a fist or thumb)

A small bruise on the left side of the neck and an abrasion on the right side of the neck

Note: All bruising appeared to have been caused at the same time as was recent

Two cuts in the throat: One four inches long and one eight inches long; Both cuts reached through to the vertebrae

Two or three inches from the left side of the abdomen was a jagged wound, very deep having cut through the tissues. Several incisions ran across the abdomen and on the right side there were three or four cuts running downward. All of the wounds had been inflicted with a sharp knife and in Llewellyn’s opinion by a left handed man. Llewellyn felt the injuries took four or five minutes to inflict.

The killer likely had some rough anatomical knowledge. He felt that Nichols had been murdered about half an hour before he arrived on the scene, perhaps about 3:50AM. He did not believe that Nichols had been seized from behind. He felt the murderer had faced her, held his right hand across her mouth and cut her throat with his left hand. The weapon was likely pointed with a stout back such as cork-cutter’s or shoemaker’s knife. It was not exceptionally long bladed.

While autopsy was being conducted Spratling returned to the mortuary and found Nichols’ clothes in a heap in the yard. I have found no desciption of the clothes beyond this.

Search and you shall find, Patrick. Llewellyn, from the inquest:

There were two cuts in the throat, one four inches long and the other eight, and both reaching to the vertebrae, which had also been penetrated. The wounds must have been inflicted with a strong bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. It appeared to have been held in the left hand of the person who had used it. No blood at all was found on the front of the woman's clothes.

[Hercule Poirot]

First let me make things clear. Although I don't aggree with your conclusion, I'm not challenging your theory and must admit you have covered all the angles and honestly admit all 31 points form circumstatial evidence.

There is however one aspect which keeps boggling me. We have these two guys Lechmere and Paul more or less close to a recently murdered woman's body. They appeared at the inquest and it seems both have been quickly cleared. It's as if the police had simply asked them 'Give us your name, any name if you prefer, for that matter then we'll let you gone on with your life. Don't you worry.'!

I'd would like for you to explain how such a thing could have happened. If Leckmere was the Ripper, it probably shows again how Lucky he was.

It keeps tickling my grey cells.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

[Pcdunn]

Patrick, your posts are excellent. If you get the digital journal "Ripperologist", check out the article "Jack be Nimble, Jack be Quick" which offers an alternative answer to the question of where is the blood spray. This agrees with Dr. Llewellyn's viewpoint of a frontal attack, but considers a different answer.

I think tracking the victim's last movements is a very good idea. One answer to why she ended up on Buck's Row could simply be she took a wrong turn, due to being drunk. In this case, it was a matter of wrong place, wrong time.
Another answer is Cross/Lechmere met her in a more crowded street and led her there on purpose-- though why to one of his routes to work, is beyond me.

[Fisherman]

First let me make things clear. Although I don't aggree with your conclusion, I'm not challenging your theory and must admit you have covered all the angles and honestly admit all 31 points form circumstatial evidence.

There is however one aspect which keeps boggling me. We have these two guys Lechmere and Paul more or less close to a recently murdered woman's body. They appeared at the inquest and it seems both have been quickly cleared. It's as if the police had simply asked them 'Give us your name, any name if you prefer, for that matter then we'll let you gone on with your life. Don't you worry.'!

I'd would like for you to explain how such a thing could have happened. If Leckmere was the Ripper, it probably shows again how Lucky he was.

It keeps tickling my grey cells.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

Well, Hercule, I don´t think it is a viable suggestion that the police would be happy with any name. There would have been a formal question asked at the inquest to state name, address and occupation, and before that, Lechmere would have been interviewed by the police who would have wanted his real name - and who apparently thought they got it.

Why did the police not delve deeper into the carmen?

In Pauls case, he was provided with a sterling alibi by Lechmere. But Lechmere himself had no such thing.

I think that two things governed why he was never more intensely questioned:

1. He would not have fit the preconceived notions the police would have had about what the killer would have been like. To boot, there was a "scientific" underpinning that would have not only allowed for prejudice on behalf of the police, but in fact also encouraged it: criminal anthropology.

2. Lechmere sought out the police on not only one but actually on two separate occasions. He seemingly came forward out of his own free will both times. That would have safeguarded him too.

[Dane_F]

Blood coagulates slower if you have been drinking. True enough.

But blood coagulates quicker if you are an alcoholic! The run a larger risk of bloodclots than the balanced drinkers.

I presented a number of surveys to this effect in an earlier answer, but I cannot rmember whether if it was on these boards or on JTR - peole are showering me with questions.

Anyhow, alcoholics will have more quickly coagulating blood than the average drinker. And lo and behold - 30 minutes after Lechmere left the body, the blood was a "congealed mass".

Now, what was that you wrote - "completely irrelevant and at most horribly inconclusive", was it?

I only wish you had read up before, Dane. It would have looked a lot better.

No fish. Scientist disagree on what effect alcoholics have on blood congealing.

Take for example this study conducted in '98 specifically involving Alcoholics http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9607117

Which states, "Comparing combined low and usual alcohol periods, an increase in mean weekly alcohol intake from 92 to 410 ml (mean daily intake from 13 to 58 ml) was associated with a decrease in plasma fibrinogen (by 11%, P < 0.001) and platelet count (3%, P < 0.05), but increases in factor VII (7%, P = 0.001), tissue plasminogen activator (tPA; 16%, P = 0.01) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1; 21%, P < 0.001). The ratio, tPA/PAI-1, fell from 0.50 to 0.44 (P = 0.02) confirming the relatively greater increase in PAI-1 with alcohol consumption. Two lipid-associated natural anticoagulants, tissue factor pathway inhibitor and beta 2-glycoprotein-I, did not change. The substantial reduction in plasma fibrinogen with alcohol intake may well contribute to the apparent protection alcohol confers against ischaemic coronary and cerebral events."

It further states, "The balance of anticoagulant and procoagulant and fibrinolytic effects in any individual may vary depending on quantity and type of alcoholic beverage ingested, as well as on genetic and other variables, all of which merit further study."

Or maybe we should believe this article written

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/health/a/blacer051015.htm

Which states, 'This study uses data collected from 3,798 of those participants, examined between April 1, 1991 and March 1, 1994 (the fifth examination cycle), eventually analyzing data provided by a total of 1,037 participants (460 men and 577 women) for platelet activation and 2,013 participants (879 men and 1,134 women) for platelet aggregation.
"We found that among both men and women, an intake of three to six drinks per week or more was linked to lower levels of stickiness measured by aggregability," said Mukamal. "Among the men, we also found that alcohol intake was linked to lower levels of platelet activation. Together, these findings … identify moderate drinking as a potential blood thinner." Mukamal added that the minor differences found between the men and women were more likely due to statistical issues than to any clear gender differences.'

This is yet another example of you trying to present something as definitive to strengthen your case when the truth is far more complex. The TRUTH is any assessment of how much the blood "should" be congealed and trying to base a suspect and timings of death on this are disingenuous and could be seen as disingenuous on your part.

We simply DO NOT KNOW how Nichols' body would react in this situation. The one thing we DO know is this situation was NOT the norm and ANY attempt to try and base a "blood evidence" case around what normally happens is irrelevant here.