Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[Fisherman]

If you really believed that being found alone with a body was enough to convict, then you'd convict John Reeves for killing Marta Tabram, John Davis for killing Annie Chapman, Louies Diemshutz for killing Elzabeth Stride, PC Watkins for killing Catherine Eddowes, and Thomas Bowyer for the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

But to you, being alone with the body is only enough to convict if the suspect is Charles Lechmere/

Of course, this whole charade was totally unnecessary from the outset, since I never said or beleived that being found alone with a body was enough to convict. Although I do not rule out ads such that people HAVE been convicted on that factor alone, of course.

HH Holmes killed his lovers. So did Severin Klosowski. And that's just off the top of my head from people suspected of being the Ripper.

Another example is Belle Gunness. Other well known examples are Mary Ann Cotton, George Joseph Smith, and John Christie.

These are all examples of people who killed multiple spouses, with the one exception of Christie. And we know that for example Smith did so for economical reasons. You forgot the perhaps best known example of this type of killer, the frenchman Landru, who advertised for spouses and killed seven of them for the exact same reason as Smith. And as Cotton. And as Gunness.
In actual fact, the only killer you have left from your list when we rule the economically motivated killers out, is John Christie, who DID kill his wife Ethel. The two had married in 1920, then separated in 1924, whereupon the reunited in 1934. Christie is one of the rare exceptions to the rule that serial killers will not kill their spouses, whereas the other examples you provide are of killers who seemingly gained economically from killing their spouses. And they therefore belong to another category of killers than the traditional serial killers where the murders themselves are the real driving force.

What I said therefore still applies; serial killers (driven by an urge to kill), will generally not harm their spouses. And the Ripper was very clearly not driven by economical considerations, but instead by a wish to kill and cut up women (go ahead, if you wish, and claim that he could also have been driven by a wish to sell organs, but that would be just as poor an argument as the one you made above).

[Fisherman]

Your attempt at the Appeal To Authority Fallacy is noted.

I prefer to judge people's conclusions based on their use of facts and logic.

Or as the old saying goes "A mule that had been on 100 campaigns with Frederick the Great is still a mule."

And why would the conclusions of the many ones who believe Lechmere was the killer be based on their use of facts and logic?

You see, Fiver, this is what you always do, shift the contexts to suit your suggestions.

And then we end up discussing anything but the case - which is not your strong point anyway. You are much better at playing games, I find.

[Fisherman]

It's also in the Nottingham Evening Post, but no doubt this comes from the Pall Mall Gazette originally.

What I actually wrote is "multiple sources have Paul deposing at the inquest that he walked through Buck's Row at 3.45 or that he left home shortly before 3.45, which for all intents and purposes means the same thing."

Considering Paul proximity to Buck's Row, if he believed that he left home at 'shortly before 3.45' we can be confident that he would also believe that he had passed through Buck's Row at 3.45, which gels with both the PMG version and his earlier statement in Lloyd's.

There's no point in quibbling about it. We are in agreement about what he said. We disagree about how confident we should be about his accuracy.

Have you ever, R J, said that "It was exactly XX.XX as that happened" without knowing quite well that it WAS exactly XX.XX? Do people say such a thing without knowing that they are correct? It is not a question of Paul "believing" that he passed through Bucks Row at 3.45, it is a question of him establishing as a fact that he DID pass down Bucks Row at EXACTLY 3.45. Which means that the timing is not and never was "an estimate" at all.
You have the sequence Paul leaves home at shortly before 3.45, therefore he knows that he will be in Bucks Row at 3.45. I have it the other way around; he KNEW that he was in Bucks Row exactly at 3.45, therefore he knows that he must have left home shortly before. THERE, at home, is where the estimate can be found, not in Bucks Row, because there, he very clearly establishes, he was at exactly 3.45.
If he had said that he left home at exactly 3.43, therefore he was in Bucks Row shortly after, you would have a point. But instead I am the one having a point here, based on what WAS said.
But of course, for your take on things to work, you must erase Pauls certainty and make him - how did you word it? - "wildly off". Because in your thinking, three PCs must beat one carman. But that was not so for Baxter, who was able to fix the 3.45 timing, or a timing not far off it. So he went for another three people, Thain, Llewellyn and Paul. And if we are saying that three PCs cannot be wrong, then why is it that a doctor, a PC and a carman MUST be?


Actually, I don't see any crying need to comment further.

I made my position known, and you made your rebuttal over on this thread, which seems a bit off-topic to me.

Simply put, I don't agree with your assessment, and you don't agree with mine, but I'm happy to give you the last word.

I'm happy to take it.

In conclusion, I believe Charles Cross gave a reasonably accurate time of departure and there is nothing suspicious in his account. It is impossible to know, but I think he probably left home around 3.32 or 3.33, arriving at the scene of the murder around 3.40 or 3.41, which would coincide with Abberline's analysis, and meshes nicely with the accounts and timings given by Mizen, Thain, and Neill.

No, it does not. Because John Thain also said he run to fetch Llewellyn , and Llewellyn said that John Thain arrived at his place at around 3.55-4.00. And, of course, we then get a set of people, Thain, Paul and Llewellyn, who all agreed about a version that took the time at which the body was found to around 3.45, not 3.40.
And if this was all we had, we would be having a tie, R J, between you and me. But as it happens, the coroner also noted that there were two camps, and he therefore investigated the matter and found that camp 2 was the correct one. And this he could only have done with the help of one or two timepieces, those employed by Paul (who was able to nail an exact time) and Llewellyn (who in all probability owned a clock or two or three that could be checked in retrospect, just as Pauls given time source could).
So there is really no competition here. It is a done deal, and Lechmeres proposal to have left home at around 3.30 becomes a very precarious thing on account of this.
I am not saying that you are not free to latch on to the timing that Baxter was able to dismiss, but I am saying that it can never be a good idea to do so.

I see Robert Paul as off about 5 minutes in his reckoning. What he said cannot be correct unless all the other witnesses (and the most trustworthy contemporary commentator, Inspector Abberline) were all wrong. Considering it’s only a matter of being off by 3 or 4 minutes and we have no idea on what Paul based his statement, it becomes a fool’s errand to obsess over it or to give it undue weight.

The "most trustworthy commentator", had no reason to think that the PCs were wrong, R J, because when the 19th of September report was compiled, the coroner had not yet delivered his summary at the inquest, which was when he opted for the later time. From the outset, everybody was happy to accept that Neil found the body (which was wrong), that he did so at 3.40 (which was wrong) and that there were never any two men in place before Neil (which was wrong). They were all one happy family at that stage, and if Lechmere was the killer, he could never have suggested to have left home at a time that tallied with 3.45 instead of 3.40. It is therefore an excellent argument for guilt on his behalf, that he chose 3.30 as his departure time, against the background of a belief that the the body was found at 3.40.

You really must have Paul five minutes off, must you not? Because otherwise .... ugh!

Common sense tells us that when there are four other witnesses, and a contemporary commentator (Abberline) whose accounts can all mesh nicely, it is the odd man out who must be considered the untrustworthy source.

Common sense tells me that we should not speak of four witnesses against the one, when it is in fact three witnesses against three others (you need to be aware that since Lechmere said "around" 3.30, all bets are off, as per Herlock Sholmes). Then again, common sense is not all that .. well, you know! Furthermore, common sense also tells me that if there were a collection of witnesses who could have agreed on a timing in retrospect, then that collection would be the three PCs. Plus common sense tells me that once Baxter checked the timepieces involved, he had no problems ruling out your take on common sense in favor of mine. In fact, we know he did.

Paul may have been simply mistaken or misremembering, but beyond this there are subjective elements that cannot be entirely ignored because human beings are profoundly social creatures. We care about what other people think, and Paul would have been aware that this episode was not a 'good look' for him. He left a woman on the pavement, and it turned out that she had been brutally murdered. As such, his excuse is that he was running late for work would seem more plausible in his own mind and to his own conscience if he stretched the truth and claimed he didn't enter Buck's Row until 15 minutes before 4 o'clock---which, as I already explained--is wildly unlikely considering the accounts of Mizen, Thain, and Neill, and the analysis by Inspector Abberline.

But not so wildly unlikely as to stop the coroner from establishing that Paul was correct.

People who do shift work--including police constables--become more and more aware of the time as their shifts are coming to an end. Like, everyone else, they want to go home. And Mizen, who was knocking people up, would have been acutely aware of the time, also. I see no reason to give Paul more weight than Mizen or anyone else.

I'll hold off commenting further until something interesting comes up. This is well-trod ground. The horse has been flogged.

It is not about a horse. It is about a cow that has been CALLED a horse, R J. But I understand why you are reluctant to discuss the matter any further. And I am fine with that, there is absolutely no need, since the time was fixed to 3.45 by a collection of independent data, some of which must have been the timings of Paul and Llewellyn.

I am often enough quite willing to say that there can be no knowing. But that does not apply when there IS knowing, and there is in this case. I don't think it is a question of two equally good suggestions. I don't think we have to suggest anything at all, because it is a settled matter. Whether or not it was exactly 3.45 as the body was found can, to a degree, be discussed, but whether or not the findings of the coroner established the PCs or Paul/LLewellyn/Thain as the true version cannot.

[Fisherman]

That last part is rather pathetic I have to say. ‘Absolute bulk’ and ‘most of’ are the same I agree but you used them on two opposing positions.

Can you really believe that this gets you off the hook?

You deliberately made a false claim on your book. There’s no getting away from it.

There IS no hook, and there never was. The claims from your side that I would intentionally have missed or tried to mislead, that I would be lying, that I would be deceitful, fraudulent and intent on fooling people into believing in Lechmere as the killer are all totally baseless and nothing but a very sad subjective suggestion.

If you can prove any of the above, then go ahead. But the fact of the matter is that all of it is your INTERPRETATION of my mindset, motives and engagement in the Ripper saga, nothing else. It is a figment of your imagination that I sat on my chamber and decided to try and keep people out of the know that Lechmere said that he left home at "around" 3.30, so that I could lull them into believing in my take on things, for example. I did nothing of the sort, I didn't give it a seconds afterthought, I simply acknowledged that 3.30 was the time he mentioned and I used in in a theoretical discussion to show where it takes us IF we work from that time. I even added that we need to be careful about the timings, since the clocks of the era were not always correct, just as I quoted the "near 3.30" from a newspaper in the book, supplying the readers with that piece of information. It is right there, in the book you claim I used to try and hide it away.

And the thing is, Herlock, if our brains are wired in that kind of a direction, we CAN perhaps anyway come up with the idea that I had sinister intentions with my book. The problem is that if our brains are wired differently, we would never make such an assumption at all. So in the end, how we look on it all boils down to what kind of people we are, if you take my meaning. But the salient point here is that regardless of which way our brains are wired in, nobody is going to be able to prove that I am either a villain OR a benevolent character by way of scrutinizing it in my book.

I could of course, as a consequence, start a discussion here about what is worst: having worked from the timing 3.30 in a theoretical construction clearly stating that IF he left home at 3.30, then ..., or having claimed that such a thing proves you a liar and a deceptive poster. Who can be proven to have worded himself that makes him a liar? You or me?

But I am not interested in conducting such a discussion, in spite of how I know that you cannot prove your claim. I genuinely do not want such things to be the focus of our discussion out here. And therefore I am not going to pursue it.

It's up to yourself to draw whichever conclusions you can think of from that.

[Fiver]

-- The same police who couldn't even be bothered to knock on all the doors in Buck's Row itself. Yeah, they'd certainly be sending someone over to Broad Street to check up on a white, working Englishman. Once they'd finished their checks at Doveton Street, of course.

M.

You're probably basing your statement on the following.

"Inspector Spratling said he had been making inquiries into the matter. He had not been to every house in Buck's-row, but if anything had come to light down there he would have heard of it. He had seen all the watchmen in the neighborhood, and they neither saw nor heard anything. The board school ground had been searched, but nothing likely to throw any light on the matter was discovered." - 18 September 1888 Pall Mall Gazette.

So as of 18 September, Spratling had not personally visited every house in Buck's Row. But he was not the only person assigned to investigating Nichols death. It also seems unlikely that the police stopped investigating her death after 18 September. Unfortunately, the police records are lost, so we are dependent on the newspapers.

"A house-to-house investigation and inquiry has been made in all the streets adjoining Buck's-row, but with no tangible results." - 3 September 1888 Morning Post

So the police did check every house and speak to the inhabitants in Buck's Row and the surrounding streets. It's just that Spratling didn't do it all by himself.

Here's a few more bits on what the police did.

"Inspector Helson - We have had a constable in the street for a week, but nothing was gained by it." - 18 September 1888 Morning Post

"About six o'clock that day he [Inspector Spratling] made an examination at Buck's- row and Brady-street, which ran across Baker's-row, but he failed to trace any marks of blood. He subsequently examined, in company with Sergeant Godley, the East London and District Railway lines and embankment, and also the Great Eastern Railway yard, without, however, finding any traces. A watchman of the Great Eastern Railway, whose box was fifty or sixty yards from the spot where the body was discovered, heard nothing particular on the night of the murder. Witness also visited half a dozen persons living in the same neighbourhood, none of whom had noticed anything at all suspicious. One of these, Mrs. Purkiss, had not gone to bed at the time the body of deceased was found, and her husband was of opinion that if there had been any screaming in Buck's-row they would have heard it. A Mrs. Green, whose window looked out upon the very spot where the body was discovered, said nothing had attracted her attention on the morning of Friday last." - 4 September 1888 Daily Telegraph

"About six o'clock that day he [Spratling] made an examination at Buck's- row and Brady-street, which ran across Baker's-row, but he failed to trace any marks of blood. He subsequently examined, in company with Sergeant Godley, the East London and District Railway lines and embankment, and also the Great Eastern Railway yard, without, however, finding any traces. A watchman of the Great Eastern Railway, whose box was fifty or sixty yards from the spot where the body was discovered, heard nothing particular on the night of the murder. Witness also visited half a dozen persons living in the same neighbourhood, none of whom had noticed anything at all suspicious. One of these, Mrs. Purkiss, had not gone to bed at the time the body of deceased was found, and her husband was of opinion that if there had been any screaming in Buck's-row they would have heard it. A Mrs. Green, whose window looked out upon the very spot where the body was discovered, said nothing had attracted her attention on the morning of Friday last." - 4 September 1888 Daily News

[Paddy Goose]

Hurley, we know Christer never proved the police did not inquire if Pickford's had a Charles Cross in their employ. His theory never got off the ground. He has no starting point.



Pads

[Herlock Sholmes]

Do we know who the police did or didn’t speak to?

[Mark J D]

All we get here is you insisting the police didn't bother to inquire if Pickford's had a Charles Cross in their employ.

-- The same police who couldn't even be bothered to knock on all the doors in Buck's Row itself. Yeah, they'd certainly be sending someone over to Broad Street to check up on a white, working Englishman. Once they'd finished their checks at Doveton Street, of course.

M.

[Paddy Goose]

Good afternoon Fisherman,

... The people have spoken ...

Right, but not here on Casebook they haven't.

All we get here is you insisting the police didn't bother to inquire if Pickford's had a Charles Cross in their employ. You've been doing this for a decade now. Your theory still has no starting point.

[Fiver]

You are calling Robert Pauls 3.45 timing an "estimate" on three occasions in your post. But the 3.45 timing was never given as an estimate at all. It was instead given as an exact timing: "It was exactly a quarter to four when I passed up Buck's-row to my work as a carman for Covent-garden market".

This is the only occasion where we have the 3.45 timing given by Paul, and it is from Lloyds Weekly of the 2nd of September, not from the inquest.

You are wrong. Robert Paul said when he left home at the inquest and he didn't use the word exactly in that testimony. His number was an estimate.

"Robert Paul said he lived at 30 Forster street, Whitechapel. On the Friday he left home just before a quarter to four, and on passing up Buck's row he saw a man in the middle of the road, who drew his attention to the murdered woman." - 18 September 1888 Daily News

"Robert Paul, a carman, said on the morning of the crime he left home just before a quarter to 4. He was passing up Buck's Row and saw a man standing in the middle of the road." - 22 September 1888 East London Advertiser

"Robert Paul, Forster street, Whitechapel, said - I am a carman, and on the morning of the murder I left home just before a quarter to four. As I was passing up Buck's row I saw a man standing in the roadway," - 18 September 1888 Evening Standard

"John Paul, of 30, Foster-street, Whitechapel, said he was a carman. On Friday, August 31st, he left home at about a quarter to four o'clock to go to his work in Spitalfields." - 22 September 1888 Illustrated Police News

"Robert Paul said he lived at 30, Forster-street, Whitechapel. On the Friday, he left home just before a quarter to four...." - 23 September, 1888 Sunday Dispatch

"Robert Paul said he lived at 30, Forster-street, Whitechapel. On the Friday, he left home just before a quarter to four...." - 23 September, 1888 Sunday People

"Robert Paul, a carman, said that he was passing along Buck's-row at a quarter to four on the morning in question...." = 18 September 1888 Pall Mall Gazette

"Robert Paul, Forster-street, Whitechapel. -- I am a carman, and on the morning of the murder I left home just before a quarter to four." - 18 Spetember 1888 Morning Advertiser

"Robert Paul, a carman, said that he was passing along Buck's-row at a quarter to four on the morning in question, when a man stopped him and showed him the body of a woman lying in a gateway." - 18 September 1888 Pall Mall Gazette

"Robert Baul [Paul], a carman, of 30, Foster-street, Whitechapel, stated he went to work at Cobbett's-court, Spitalfields. He left home about a quarter to 4 on the Friday morning and as he was passing up Buck's-row he saw a man standing in the middle of the road." - 18 September 1888 Times

It's clear that Robert Paul was estimating the time. You aren't just ignoring the times given by PCs Thain, Neil, and Mizen. You aren't just ignoring half of what Coroner Baxter said. You aren't just ignoring Inspector Abberline's report. You're ignoring Robert Paul's inquest testimony, where he did not say that 3:45am was "exact".

[Fiver]

Expanding my previous reply to Fisherman's "Mizen scam".

Robert Paul claimed that he spoke to PC Mizen. Ignoring that fact doesn't make it go away.

For your theory to work you have to explain why:
* Robert Paul would lie about speaking to PC Mizen when he hadn't.
* Charles Lechmere would support Paul's lie in his inquest testimony.
* PC Mizen didn't expose the two carmen's lies. After all, they had both claimed he continued knocking up, which made him look bad, so Mizen had a strong reason to undermine their credibility.
* In his summing up, Coroner Baxter, who got to hear all the testimony, not just newspaper summaries, concluded that both Paul and Cross spoke to PC Mizen.

"Cross and Paul reported the circumstances to a constable at the corner of Hanbury-street and Barker's-row, about three hundred yards distant, but in the meantime Police-constable Neil discovered the body." - Coroner Baxter, 30 September 1888 Sunday Dispatch.

The Mizen Scam is nonsense that requires ignoring the facts instead of presenting the whole picture.

[Fiver]

So he is right at the top of the lists? Like I said?

Good.

That's the first tome I've seen someone claim victory after being totally debunked.

Lechmere wasn't at the top of any of those lists. He was near the top, but "near the top" does not mean the same thing as "right at the top".

[Fiver]

If the two had been hauled in by the police, and if the knowledge of the police did not extend to more than we know today, it applies that Lechmere could be convicted of the crime of killing Nichols, whereas there would not be any case against Bury at all.

If you really believed that being found alone with a body was enough to convict, then you'd convict John Reeves for killing Marta Tabram, John Davis for killing Annie Chapman, Louies Diemshutz for killing Elzabeth Stride, PC Watkins for killing Catherine Eddowes, and Thomas Bowyer for the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

But to you, being alone with the body is only enough to convict if the suspect is Charles Lechmere/

There may be some example of some sort of exception, I don't know - but killing your spouse is not a favorite serial killer pastime.

HH Holmes killed his lovers. So did Severin Klosowski. And that's just off the top of my head from people suspected of being the Ripper.

Another example is Belle Gunness. Other well known examples are Mary Ann Cotton, George Joseph Smith, and John Christie.

[Fiver]

A whole lot of the people who like Lechmere as a suspect have many, many years in ripperology behind themselves.

Your attempt at the Appeal To Authority Fallacy is noted.

I prefer to judge people's conclusions based on their use of facts and logic.

Or as the old saying goes "A mule that had been on 100 campaigns with Frederick the Great is still a mule."

[Lewis C]

A simple answer: He is proven to have been found alone with the victim at one of the murder sites.

It really is that simple. Having been proven to have a violent streak and being capable of murder does not trump that single parameter.

So then do you think that everyone that discovered a victim's body in the case is a better suspect than Bury, or do you think that being seen discovering a body makes someone a suspect much more than if one discovers a body without being seen doing it?