Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[A P Tomlinson]

Or that newspaper was rounding to the nearest quarter hour instead of trying to set an exact time.

And since when should we take a single newspaer's estimate over the estimates of three police constables and the offical report by inspector Abberline?



Inspector Spratling gave a report on 31 August 1888 stating that PC Neil had found Nichols body at 3;45am.

Inspector Abberline's report was on 19 September 1888. PC Neil, PC Mizen, Charles Lechmere, PC Thain, and Robery Paul had testified in court, with Abberline being present for testimony. Abberline estimated that Lechmeme found the body around 3:40am. There is no evidence that Abberline ever changed that view.

Inspector Swanson gave a report on 19 October 1888 where he estimated that Lechmere and Paul found the body around 3:45am.

Which leads to two possibilities.
* Swanson discounted the testimonies of PC Mizen, PC Neil, and PC Thain, as well as Abberline's and Spratling's report's.
* Swanson was rounding to the nearest quarter hour.

The second seems much more likely and is reinforced by the fact that the coroner, the jury, the police, and the press did not see any time gap in the testimonies.

Oh, come on Fiver... what possible reason would Swanson have for even thinking that three constabless from two divisions and a reknowned Inspector and professional horrologist would have a better understanding of the timelines of the combined interwoven overlapping movements of those involved, when put aganst mouthy carman Robert Paul's estimate of "Ass-pull O'clock"

[Fiver]

I am doing what any discerning researcher should do. I am pointing out that the day after the body was dumped in Pinchin Street, a bloody rag was found in an exact line between the arch where it was dumped and Lechmeres lodgings, a fair way up to the northeast. And I am adding the information that there can be no certainty that the rag is linked to Charles Lechmere.

That is the exact way in which a matter like this should be presented.

What should NEVER happen, is to suppress the matter.

But I believe that this is the exact thing you are trying your hand at.

So tell us, Fiver, how do we go about informing the readers about that rag?

Do we mention that it was found, but refuse to tell WHERE it was found?

Do we point out that it was found in an exact line between the railway arch and the Lechmerian home, or do we leave that information out?

Do we stay away from mentioning the rag at all?

Or do we add the information of its existence, point out where it was found and establish that it was found in a direct line between the railway arch and Lechmeres lodgings - and make it clear that no link to the carman has been proven as such?

Let's hear your take on how the matter should be presented, if it is to be presented at all.

Clearly you're in the "never mention the rag at all camp"since you ignore the Hooper Street rag and give prominence to the St Phillips Church rag.

A general coverage of the Pinchin Street Torso wouldn't mention either bloody rag, they're just random bits of rubbish.

A more detailed coverage would to mention that the Hooper Street rag was found a few hundred yards from the Pinchin Street Torso a couple hours afterwards, while the St Phillips Church rag was found the next day, nowhere near Pinchin Street. It would also mention that neither rag is proven to have anything to do with the Pinchin Street Torso.

Any kind of good coverage would not mention Charles Lechmere in the context, since there is no evidence that he had anything to to with the Torso or either bloody rag.

Lousy, biased coverage would mention the St Phillips Church rag and ignore the Hooper Street rag. Lousy, biased coverage would draw a Ley Line to Lechmere while ignoring you could draw the same Ley Line to thousands of Londoners. Lousy, biased coverage would be to ignore that St James Church rag was not on any likely walking route between Pinchin Street and the Lechmere home. Lousy, biased coverage would be to ignore that Lechmere wouldn't be going home at 5:30am, he would be at work.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Or that newspaper was rounding to the nearest quarter hour instead of trying to set an exact time.

And since when should we take a single newspaer's estimate over the estimates of three police constables and the offical report by inspector Abberline?



Inspector Spratling gave a report on 31 August 1888 stating that PC Neil had found Nichols body at 3;45am.

Inspector Abberline's report was on 19 September 1888. PC Neil, PC Mizen, Charles Lechmere, PC Thain, and Robery Paul had testified in court, with Abberline being present for testimony. Abberline estimated that Lechmeme found the body around 3:40am. There is no evidence that Abberline ever changed that view.

Inspector Swanson gave a report on 19 October 1888 where he estimated that Lechmere and Paul found the body around 3:45am.

Which leads to two possibilities.
* Swanson discounted the testimonies of PC Mizen, PC Neil, and PC Thain, as well as Abberline's and Spratling's report's.
* Swanson was rounding to the nearest quarter hour.

The second seems much more likely and is reinforced by the fact that the coroner, the jury, the police, and the press did not see any time gap in the testimonies.

You’re not allowing sufficient time for the ‘gap’ though Fiver. You know the rules by now.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am doing what any discerning researcher should do..

Like reading all the newspaper reports of the inquest quoting Cross. Counting them up. Seeing that the majority clearly said “around 3.30.” Then writing the opposite. Then wriggling around because you know that you can’t justify doing it.

[Fiver]

That was not what I did, though. Again, you are twisting words and misinforming. I told you that the net is full of information and research confirming that stress factors can trigger serial murder, and that they can make a serial killer feel deprived of control. This is not any suggestion of mine, it is common knowledge. But I am not going to spend hours on providing material for you, on account of how we both know that you are given to misrepresenting, misinforming and twisting - as proven by the above.

You will never directly admit to being wrong, but your previous post clearly shows that you have no evidence.

"Feel free to do the research and see if there is any coupling made by experts on the matter between stress factors and serial murder." - Christer Holmgren

If you had any evidence that work stress led to serial killing, you would have given it instead of trying to get me to do the research for you.

Your words show that you have no evidence that work stress leads to serial killing. Your words prove what you will never directly admit.

[Fiver]

Speaking about your misrepresentations, Fiver, I would like to direct you back to this exchange from yesterday:

Fiver: As Christer refuses to admit, there is no known connection between the bloody rag and Charles Lechmere, either.

When did I ever "refuse to admit" that there is no known connection between the St Philip rag and Charles Lechmere, Fiver? Please direct me to the quotation you are using for this claim of yours.

If you don't, I will persist.

... and here I am, persisting; tell us when and where I ever "refused to admit" that there is no known connection between the St Philips rag and Charles Lechmere!

The alternative is not telling - which is also telling.

Every time you repeat your Ley Line theory, you are claiming there is a connection between the bloody rag and Charles Lechmere.

[FrankO]

Hi Christer,

Before I’m going into this post of yours I have some remarks.

First off, I’m not R J; I’m Frank. Please don’t forget me.

Secondly, it would not only be courteous of you, but also more effective if you could 1) remember my view on what Baxter meant with his “not far from 3.45”, and 2) take off your “it’s an established fact that Baxter investigated all relevant timings and was, as a result, able to conclude that Lechmere had found the body at 3.45, give or take a minute” goggles off for a moment and try to see how things would look from my side. That way I wouldn’t need to rewrite how I see things every time I respond to something you write.

I have no trouble seeing things from your perspective and, in doing so, understand why you see certain things the way you do, so it would be nice if you’d extend me the same courtesy.

Having said that, let’s go into what you’ve written.

It was always extremely obvious that there were two suggestions of when the body was found, around 3.40 if the PCs were correct, and around 3.45 if Paul was correct. I am not going to accept that Baxter could have been unaware of this, generally speaking.

Yes, in theory there would be 2 suggestions of when the body was found and they would be extremely obvious to anybody who would be interested in getting to the bottom of when, exactly, the body was found by Lechmere. So, I’m not suggesting Baxter would have been unaware of anything, I just very seriously doubt that anybody, including Baxter, would be as interested in it as you are or I am. With the problem that everybody owned a clock or watch, especially in the poorer parts of town, and with clocks & watches not necessarily being synchronized, I think our modern sense of time is different than that of 1888 and to pinpoint things to the minute would simply be undoable.

But his harsh questioning of Thain proves that he was aware of the matter.

The first things the coroner asked Thain were not about his timing but first about the blood and then about whether he had searched the neighbourhood. So this doesn’t fit very well with your suggestion that Thain’s timing was important to Baxter. Had that been the case, then the first thing to get cleared up was his timing and asking him some questions about it.

What’s also interesting is that it wasn’t the coroner who asked Thain about whether he’d passed the slaughterhouse on his way to the doctor but it was someone on the jury.

All in all, this doesn’t give me the impression of any harsh questioning in the sense of trying to get to the bottom of why it might have taken him so long to get to the doctor’s before anything else or whether his timing might have been off 5 minutes or so. Yes, he was asked a question about whether he had passed by the slaughterhouse on his way to the doctor, but not by the coroner and only near the end of his inquest appearance; it certainly wasn’t the first question he was asked.

I would also persist in saying that no coroner could have concluded what Baxter concluded without involving one or more timepieces. If he did not use that element, he would never be able to say that he could fix the time to 3.45 or not far off that mark.

I can understand that you’d persist that when you’re assuming it as fact that Baxter investigated the timings and concluded what you think he concluded. However, as far as I’m concerned, what you consider a fact is only your interpretation and can’t be anything other than that.

That I agree with. But there are matters that need not be stated out loud, if the evidence ensures that they were there. And it does in this case. Of course, you are free to disagree, but I cannot see how that would work. Which is perhaps an indications that ... well, that I am unable to see something you can see. If so, tell me about it.

It isn’t so difficult. I can see that, if you presume that your interpretation of Baxter’s summing up “could not have been far from 3.45” is the correct one, that you then can’t see how things would work. However, if you let go of that presumption, open your mind to the notion that Baxter, or anybody else for that matter, quite possibly didn’t look at the timings with our modern eyes (meaning that we think in matter of minutes), but rather that it would be undoable to try to pinpoint things to the minute (or two), then it would work.

From behind: I don't say that the "the other man ..." snippet proves anything, Frank, although it IS in line with what I am suggesting, as is the wording "I sent the other man for a policeman" in the Morning Advertiser. These are things I point out because they are potentially adding a measure of confirmation to my take on things.
The "not far off 3.45" matter is another thing, ...

If Mizen did actually say or tried to say that Paul continued to walk down Hanbury Street while he and Lechmere spoke, the snippet would really be a very awkward & vague way of saying it. There’s no way of going around it or denying it. But seeing the other two snippets (Star of 3/9 & Times of 4/9) of what was said, it should become clear that Mizen didn’t say that Paul continued while he spoke to Lechmere.
So, it should be clear that this snippet really is, at best, the thinnest and flimsiest of evidence to base your view on/to support your view. And as far as I’m concerned, the same goes for your “cannot have been far from 3.45” theory/evidence.

...and here, I am not saying that it potentially tells us that the timing of 3.45 is likely the correct one. I am saying that it establishes that this was so, although it has not been given that status before.
So why would my take seal it? Am I that arrogant?

So in post #191 on The Darkness of Baker’s Row” you say that you “don't say that it is necessarily the correct one”, referring to your interpretation of what Baxter meant by “it cannot have been far from 3.45”. But now you’re claiming that it is?

Whatever the case, as long as your interpretation is just one possible interpretation, it can never be a base to establish anything. So, your take doesn’t seal a thing. I’m not going to say that you are arrogant, but you sure can come off as such, Christer.

Nope, it was never a question of my take, it is a question of the coroners take, who says that he can prove that the body was found at 3.45 or not far off 3.45. That is what he says when he says that the time has been fixed to that point.

Except he didn’t say “at 3.45”, he said “not far from 3.45”; they are not the same thing.

Why did not a single Ripper researcher notice it until more than a hundred years after the murders?

I’m not asking about Ripper researchers and I’m not asking about ‘the Mizen scam’ and I’m not interested in some femur bone in John Christie’s case; I’m especially asking about what Baxter found, if he was – as you claim – as keen on getting to the bottom of when Nichols was first found and if he found a maximum of 5 minutes as important as you find it. All the things you add are nothing but smoke & mirrors.

And maybe he was late to work! Or maybe he arrived there, panting baldy after a brisk run! But would he tell the inquest about that if he was the killer - or would he try to give as grey and colorless a version of events? Yes, he ran the risk of the police checking it. But killing always come with risks.

Distraction!

BUT precisely the response I predicted in my post #190 on The Darkness of Baker’s Row. “By the way, it's interesting to see how the 3.30 in "about 3.30" is used to widen the gap, whilst the "he got to Pickford's yard at Broad-street at four o'clock", when used by us naysayer folk, is seen as useless (as in: we can't be certain that it was precisely four o'clock or even very close to it).”

Because, I would suggest, that what Baxter was looking for was the time at which the body was found - and he quickly found out that he had all he needed to establish that time.

And how could he do that, not having the whole picture? I cannot see how that would work. Which is perhaps an indications that ... well, that I am unable to see something you can see. If so, tell me about it.

As for Baxter being investigative, we have it on record that he was. We know that he researched the data, and found that independent parts of them established that 345 or not far off that time was when the body was found.

If you mean by this that we just have all the inquest statements and his summing up and that we don’t know anything he did – investigative-wise – outside any of the inquest sessions, then I agree. He listened to everybody and summed up based on what he’d heard during the inquest sessions. Other than the question put to Thain by the jury about passing by the slaughterhouse on his way to the doctor we have no evidence of him believing any one timing over any other(s) and never disputed any timing. That’s what I go by.

It was only if he asked other questions that he would have needed to look into Lechmeres timings. Apparently, he never asked those questions.

That doesn’t make sense at all. Wasn’t Lechmere the very one who’d found Nichols?? So, why wouldn’t he have been interested in the timings that Lechmere gave?? Especially if he was as bent on getting the finding time right as you think he was and seeing that his 4 o’clock timing was really the only precise timing given by those first 6 witnesses on the scene, it doesn’t make sense and is, therefore, unconvincing!

The writing is on the wall as far as I'm concerned, Frank. I am not changing my mind on the score for reasons given above. You are as welcome as ever to have a different view, but it is a very problematic one if you are going to speak for 3.40 as the likely finding time.

Well, I’m not so hung up on a time, Christer. I’d settle for around, maybe, 3.42, but am certainly not married to it. And my view is further that the only thing that would be problematic is trying to piece together to the minute the comings & goings of our 6 witnesses and that I don’t think Baxter or anybody else for that matter back then would have seen it very differently.

If Baxter really was as focused on uncovering Lechmere’s finding time as you think he was, then why don’t we see anything similar in Stride’s case? After all, it’s clear that PC Smith’s timing of “about 1 am” arriving at the corner of Commercial Road and Berner Street doesn’t go with either Diemshutz (1 am) or Blackwell’s (1.16) or Lamb’s (1.04 to 1.06, based on Blackwell’s timing). According to his own account he saw PC’s Lamb and Collins when arrived in Dutfield’s Yard and he hadn’t seen PC 426 H running for the doctor. Just when Smith left the yard to go for the ambulance at Leman Street police station, he saw Blackwell’s assistant arrive. So, Smith’s timing was off by at least some 5 minutes. Yet, we see no evidence at all of Baxter being harsh on Smith or adjusting Diemshutz’s discovery time.

Then again, since when does ripperology prohibit people from entertaining all sorts of views...?

The best to you too, Christer.

Frank

[Fiver]

Is there a link to this map?

I don't think Fisherman has drawn one. Jeff Hamm has helpfully done this at my request.

The orange lines are between Mitre Square and the Goulston Street Graffito. They completely refute one tenet of the Ley Line school - the claim that the GSG was on a direct line between Mitre Square and Lechemre's residence at 22 Doveton Street.

The blue lines go from Pichin Street to the St Phillips Church. They are a cone, not a line, since we only know they were found inside the fence, somewhere around the perimeter of the block, since the church was undergoing construction at the time.




The cone passes over hundreds of houses, one of which was Charles Lechmere's. It doesn't point at anyone's house.

There's no evidence that the bloody rag had anything to do with the Pinchin Street Torso.

And real people use streets, they don't bound across the rooftops on straight lines like Springheeled Jack. Shortest walking routes between Pichin Street and the Lechmere residence would not pass by the St Phillip's Church.

[FrankO]

There is even need to go over this many times, I feel, Frank. And for good reasons.

Maybe you need to go over it once more or many times, but I don't feel a particular need, Christer.

So Baxter KNEW who found the body, the police KNEW who found the body, the press KNEW who found the body and wrote that the body must have been found between 3.15 and 3.45, not before 3.40 - but you believe that Baxter, when speaking in his summary about the time at which the body was found, was referring back to Neil, still thinking that the PC had found the body at 3.45? Although Baxter said that the body was found at 3.45 or not far off it?

Yup. As I've said in previous exchanges between us on the subject, Baxter indeed referred back to Neil's timing, because that was the closest one he had and immediately before giving his "cannot have been far from 3.45" bit, he actually mentioned Neil discovering the body. I know you don't agree with it, but that's how I see and read it. And, again, Baxter didn't say "the body was found at 3.45 or not far off it"; he just said "not far from 3.45" - as below.

"Cross and Paul reported the circumstance to a constable at the corner of Hanbury street and Baker's row, about 300 yards distant, but in the meantime Police constable Neil discovered the body. The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from a quarter to four a.m., as it is fixed by so many independent data."

So, while your "not far from 3.45" means "at 3.45 or perhaps give or take one minute", mine means that it might also have been 3.40.

I'll leave you to it.

The best,
Frank

[Fiver]

If Baxter really was as focused on uncovering Lechmere’s finding time as you think he was, then why don’t we see anything similar in Stride’s case? After all, it’s clear that PC Smith’s timing of “about 1 am” arriving at the corner of Commercial Road and Berner Street doesn’t go with either Diemshutz (1 am) or Blackwell’s (1.16) or Lamb’s (1.04 to 1.06, based on Blackwell’s timing). According to his own account he saw PC’s Lamb and Collins when arrived in Dutfield’s Yard and he hadn’t seen PC 426 H running for the doctor. Just when Smith left the yard to go for the ambulance at Leman Street police station, he saw Blackwell’s assistant arrive. So, Smith’s timing was off by at least some 5 minutes. Yet, we see no evidence at all of Baxter being harsh on Smith or adjusting Diemshutz’s discovery time.

The best to you too, Christer.

Frank

Excellent post.

If Baxter was as focused on uncovering Lechemre's finding time as Fisherman thinks he was, then why don't we see it in the Nichols case? Lechmere wasn't asked what time he found the body, what time he found PC Mizen, or what time he parted company with Robert Paul near Spitalfield's Market. Paul wasn't asked what time he parted company with Lechmere. PC Mizen wasn't asked what time he reached Buck's Row. PC Neil wasn't asked what times he encountered PCs Thain and Mizen.

[Fiver]

Your theory requires Spratling to ignore the Coroners order and not make inquiries at every house in Buck's Row.

No, as per the above, my theory does not require that at all. There is no problem at all with my theory, but I cannot say the same for yours - it predisposed that the coroner would have placed the task of interviewing all the inhabitants of Bucks Row on the shoulders of Spratling. And that is not credible in any shape or form.

Your theory is that the police did not make inquiries at all of the houses on Buck's Row, even though they were ordered to do so by Coroner Baxter and even though they reported making inquiries at all of the house adjoining Buck's Row.

Why would Inspector Spratling ignore Baxter's orders to make inquiries at all the houses in Bucks Row?

Why would the police make inquiries at all the houses adjoining Buck's Row and not make inquiries at all the houses in Buck's Row?

[FrankO]

With the problem that everybody owned a clock or watch, especially in the poorer parts of town, and with clocks & watches not necessarily being synchronized, I think our modern sense of time is different than that of 1888 and to pinpoint things to the minute would simply be undoable. [/FONT][/FONT]

That should, of course, read: With the problem that not everybody owned a clock or watch...

[Fisherman]

Then all that you have to do is this…..

Give us all a reasonable explanation that explains how you read the newspaper reports of what Cross said at the inquest and came to the conclusion that the majority said that he’s said ‘3.30’ as opposed to ‘around 3.30’ which is what the majority actually said.

And could you make it a waffle-free answer and one that doesn’t have us all rolling around laughing please?

Im interested to see how long you can dodge this issue for?

It is not I who must disprove that your allegations are false, it is YOU who need to prove them right. And you cannot do that.

If you believe that making false allegations about a fellow poster being a liar, deceitful and dishonest is a reason to roll around laughing, I beg to differ. I consider it extremely rude and totally misleading, since I have never once sought to mislead anybody about anything in the Ripper saga.

What you need to prove that I would have tried to intentionally mislead, is any documentation that this was so. Suspecting it does not work, as anybody with any sort of functioning reason would be quite aware about.

Here is a snippet from Michael Connors dissertation on here "Did the Ripper Work for Pickfords?":

"The Star (3 September) wrote: ‘He [Cross] was employed by Pickfords. He left home on Friday at twenty minutes past three, and got to Pickfords’ yard at Broad-street at four o’clock.’ The Times agreed, reporting that Cross ‘stated that he left home on Friday morning at 20 minutes past three, and he arrived at his work, at Broad-street, at four o’clock.’ In 1888, Pickfords was a long-established British firm of carriers who are still in business today.

The statement in the Star and Times are incorrect. Cross was with Robert Paul in Buck’s Row at approximately 3.45 and with PC Mizen shortly after, so it would have been impossible for him to have reached Broad Street by 4am. Other newspapers—the Daily News (4 September) and Daily Telegraph (4 September)—said he left home about 3.30 and the Morning Advertiser (4 September) appeared to be offering Cross’s own words, which agreed with this later timing: ‘On Friday morning I left home at half past three.’ These discrepancies are explainable.

Walking time between Doveton Street, where Cross lived, and Broad Street, where he worked for Pickfords, is about 40 minutes. Cross may have told Coroner Wynne Baxter that he usually left home at 3.20 and arrived at Broad Street at four o’clock, but on Friday he was late and left home at 3.30. In the Daily News story, Cross claimed that he was ‘behind time’. If this is what happened, then the Star and The Times recorded his usual timetable, while the Daily News, Daily Telegraph and Morning Advertiser gave the time he claimed to have left home on the day of the murder. Cross may have been explaining why he was in Buck’s Row at a later time than usual.

Walking time between Doveton Street and the Buck’s Row murder site today is approximately six minutes—it would have been quicker in 1888. Even on the basis of this modern timing, if he left home on that morning about 3.30 then he would have been in Buck’s Row about 3.36."

Note how Michael Connor does not suggest that the finding time was around 3.45. He says that this was so, and uses this as the starting point for his reasoning.

He then quotes the Dn and the DT as both saying "about 3.30" and adds that the Morning Advertiser had it without the "about": "I left home at half past three". And then Connor says that the Dn and DT timings agree with the Morning Advertiser.
You don't think they agree at all, do you? You think they disagree.

And what happens then? Well, then Connor says that Cross may have told Coroner Wynne Baxter that he usually left home at 3.20 and arrived at Broad Street at four o’clock, but on Friday he was late and left home at 3.30.

The scoundrel!

He LEFT OUT the about!!

So, Herlock, was Connors aim to mislead and lie, to misrepresent and deceitfully lead his readers up the garden path?

Or was he simply reasoning theoretically about where it takes us if we work from the 3.30 timing? While supplying the information that the wording "about" was actually there in two named papers?

Which is it? When do people turn into liars in your eyes, for reasoning theoretically about these things and actually using the only time given when doing so? This is where you normally start claiming that Lechmere did NOT give the timing 3.30, he gave the timing "about" 3.30. But as you can see, people reasoning about it WILL use the 3.30 thing as the starting point of their thinking and reasoning anyway - becasue it IS the time Lechmere suggested he left home, REGARDLESS of how he garnished it with an "about".
As I have said a thousand times now, any theoretical reasoning will and must work from 3.30. No theoretical reasoning that worked from 3.29 or 3.31 would be as sound, and every added or detracted minute would make it worse.

Again, you have failed to provide any sort of evidence at all for how I would have tried to intentionally mislead my readers by way of not adding the "about" to the theoretical reasoning I - and Michael Connor - do about where we end up IF Lechmere left home at 3.30.

Again, you have failed to prove your allegations.

And you have now added the element that it would somehow lie upon ME to clear myself of YOUR unproven allegations?

And then you speak of rolling around laughing? When you time and time again make these kind of posts, the laughing is not on me, Herlock. The laughing - AND the crying - is all on you.

Proof, please! NOW!

[Fisherman]

And that staggeringly pointless point would apply to every single ripper suspect with a job. I’m waiting for you to claim the fact that he had arms as a point in favour of his guilt.

Yes, bravo, Herlock! It would apply to every single Ripper suspect who suddenly got a much more straining job by way of having working hours added. You have, at long last, grasped what I am saying.

You are welcome to explain to us why it would be staggeringly pointless to point out that elements that can set off serial killing may have been there in Lechmeres case. Personally, I always thought that if such a thing could be pointed to, it would be of tremendous interest.

And it is of course noteworthy that it came up in a context that was aimed to prove how Lechmere was perhaps LESS likely to commit murder than other Eastenders.

[Fisherman]

I would have thought that Lech being 20 odd years in the same job would be a pointer towards him being quite satisfied in his position of employment

Regards Darryl

Three buts:

We dont know how easy it would have been for him to change jobs.

It may be that the harsh employment conditions mentioned in the article were not there as he set out as a carman.

We have no idea whether Lechmere personally was affected by the conditions in which case Fivers suggestions were moot from the start, and in which case he may have had other factors that set him off killing. Which he may of course have had anyway - my posts on this are simply meant to point out that harsh working conditions CAN be a reason for why a potential serial killer is set off.