Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[Fisherman]

I see I'm not the only one who noticed that.

A "coarse apron" found near the St Phillip's Church.

"Some bloodstained clothing" found in Batty Street

A "bloodstained undergarment found at half-past seven in a vacant yard in Hooper-street."

Fisherman's repeated, deliberate ignoring of all except the one found last and farthest from the Pinchin Street Torso tells us far more about Fisherman than it does about the case.

And your repeated cry "Nothing to see here, move on, please" tells us all we need to know about you.

Furthermore, it is not only about the astounding placement of the rag on that exact line. It is ALSO the equally astounding fact that the torso was dumped in Charles Lechmeres boyhood street. Of all streets.

You have to explain that away, or (perhaps more to your taste) sweep that under the carpet, before you can turn your broom on the rag.

Good luck with it, Fiver!

[Abby Normal]

I refer you to my # 1481:

There is no evidence that Lechmere was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London on the night of 29/30 September 1888, let alone, as Stow claims, at a Pickfords depot on the same night.


There is no proof that he went to work on 9 November 1888.

If he had killed Kelly, he would have been late for work, possibly by about two hours.

That obviously did not happen.

If he did not go to work that day, why would he be in Spitalfields in the middle of the night, rather than at home with his family after arriving home following a 14-18 hour shift?

The case against him is farfetched.

PI

I refer you to my # 1481:

There is no evidence that Lechmere was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London on the night of 29/30 September 1888, let alone, as Stow claims, at a Pickfords depot on the same night.


There is no proof that he went to work on 9 November 1888.

did you even read my post?? you just completely missed the point or ignored it.

If he had killed Kelly, he would have been late for work, possibly by about two hours.

That obviously did not happen.

If he did not go to work that day, why would he be in Spitalfields in the middle of the night, rather than at home with his family after arriving home following a 14-18 hour shift?

oh i dont know--doing what serial killers do-out looking for victims??
and you do realize many serial killers were married and had families??

[Fisherman]

Thoroughly disgraceful obfuscation. You simply will not answer the question will you? Will I give in and let it go? Nope.

Please stop talking about the usage of ‘around. This is not the issue and you know it.

In Cutting Point you said:

“Most papers speak of Lechmere saying that he left home at 3.30, but the time 3.20 is also mentioned in one paper.”

So you read the various Press reports and counted them so that you could arrive at “most papers.”

I hope that you’re grasping this?

So how did you manage to do that Fish? How did you manage to count the reports to decide how many said ‘3.30’ and how many said ‘around 3.30,’ and manage to arrive at the totally wrong conclusion that ‘most papers’ said ‘3.00.’

How could you have possible counted incorrectly?


Stop wriggling and answer this childishly simple question. I’ll help you. Try beginning your answer with the words……I read those reports and counted them incorrectly due to…..

Because 3.30 is the time that was suggested in the phrasing "around 3.30".

You are trying and failing to make a mountain out of a wormhole (forget the molehill, you haven got what it takes to get you that high off the ground), and it does not work.

I suggest you learn to live with it. After all, you miserably failed to notice this GLARING attempt at misleading when you read Cutting Point in 2021. And now you tell me that it is impossible to miss it.

You are being ridiculous, as so often.

[Fisherman]

Hello Christer.

Well, well - it Mr Ragtime! Hello there, R J!

Alas, this will probably be my last response to you, as I find that when I challenge your interpretations on any given point you have an annoying habit of becoming unduly huffy as if I have accused you of dishonesty, which I did not accuse you of. These sorts of games have a real dampening effect on any attempt at reasonable debate or discussion.

You know, I keep getting that same sickening feeling. I genuinely believe that many people do not have the inclination to conduct a fair and useful debate.

Earlier you argued that a 'portion of a woman's attire' indicates that it was only a partial piece of cloth and thus a rag, and I then pointed out that you were misusing the word 'attire' as a single piece of clothing, which it is not.

What I argued was that for a piece of cloth to count as a rag, it need not have been torn or cut from something. If I find a t-shirt - or an apron - all smeared with engine oil on the floor in a car repair place, I am entirely at liberty to regard these garment - or pieces of attire - as rags. And to be frank ,there is nothing you can say that will change that take of mine. Plus, of course, you know that I am correct on the point - I should hope!

You now justify calling it a rag because it was 'discarded' under a plank.

No. If a goldfish is discarded under a plank, it does not become a rag. But if an apron is discarded, with stains of blood upon it, and left lying in the dirt and grime of a building site, then it will have qualified itself as a rag. To some extent, the size of the apron can play a role; the larger it is, the more likely I would be to call it an apron - but we don't know what type of apron it was, do we? It may well have been a smallish one. And to be perfectly clear, if somebody said, when noticing a full apron with blood oin it "that's a sizable rag", I would not call the language police (a gentleman with the initials R J P).

So, if I decide to hide my heavy coat or my new pants or any other article of clothing under a plank, it becomes a 'rag,' does it?

A heavy coat would be very hard to handle as a rag, so I would be inclined to call it a coat with blood on it, if I was to find one. hen again, what was discarded up at St Philips was decidedly NOT a heavy coat. But if you agree with me that a, say, t-shirt can be called a rag if found in a twist and with blood on it, you must then take upon yourself the task of explaining which garments can be called rags and which cannot.
Underwear - but not a dinner jacket?
A bandana - but not an evening gown?
or
t-shirt - bit not an apron?

And you feel justified in calling it a rag even if the apron was otherwise brand spanking new---which, as far as we know, it could have been?

"As far as we know"? As far as I know, I don't know. Nor do you. And actually an apron is no longer brand spanking new if it has ben heavily stained with blood and grime. Try selling such an item to somebody as brand spanking new, and you will see what I mean.

Thank you, Christer, for explaining this most inventive use of the English language.

Thank you for catching on!

As for me, I will continue to call 'the suspicious garment' what the contemporaries called it: "a coarse apron, such is usually worn by the poorer classes of the East End"---without the slightest hint that it wasn't the complete apron.

I am reasoning that it would have been a complete apron. But there were aprons that were large and there were small ones, extending only from the waistline down.

It really does leave me wondering why you are so insistent in not calling it what it was.

I am not insistent at all. I could well have called it an apron. And I could have called the chapter in Cutting Point "Two bloodstained aprons" instead of "Two bloodstained rags". It would have had the exact same effect when it comes to pointing out a potential connection, I would say - if not more.

---

You ask: do I consider this apron, and its location, to be a coincidence?

Yes, I do!

No. I consider to be one of the many articles of bloody clothing discovered by ordinary citizens during the murder cluster of 1888-1891 and then described in the press---only one of which--Kate Eddowes' partial piece of apron--has any conclusive relevance to our inquires.

Then I'm afraid you DO consider how it was found in a direct line leading from the arch and up over St Philips church to 22 Doveton Street a mere coincidence. Because the "many" bloody items found would stand a diminutive chance of landing on such a spot.
The coincidence does not go away on account of how other items were found in other places. And they are really not that many, are they?

There were at least three bloody articles of clothing mentioned in the press during the flap over the Pinchin Street case alone.

And one of them was found in an exact line leading up to Lechmeres house. That is either an incredible coincidence, since he is a suspect for the murders, or it is genuine evidence that he dropped the rag at St Philips.
There are no in betweens or other terms that can describe it, unless we swop coincidence for fluke or something such.

Thus, you took the one article of clothing among these many articles of clothing mentioned in 1888-1891 that seemed appropriate to your prosecution of Charles Lechmere and noticed that it was in found along a straight path--as the crow flies---between the railway arch and Doveton Street.

Many? Three, was it? And yes, I did exactly that - I noted how the rag was dumped in an exact line between the railway arch and Charles Lechmeres home. And I made that observation on account of how I consider him to the the likely killer in both the Ripper and the Torso series. The reflection I did MUST be done, because we are not supposed to go Fivers way, and sweep information like this under the carpet. It also applies that BEFORE we note how that rag magically, co incidentally or for some other Eason landed right on a direct line drawn from the arch up to Doveton Street, we already know that the killer of the Pinchin Street woman (or somebody he engaged to help him) "just happened" to dump the torso on Charles Lechmeres boyhood street of Pinchin Street.
And if you have not been able to shape the word coincidence with your lips before, that means that you need to start practicing.

If that excites you, so be it.

Intrigues. Not excites.

I don't find it exciting for several reasons, one of which is that you have never explained, to my knowledge, why you think a man would bring the bloody apron to his murderous 'dump site' in the first place¹ only to carry it away again, traipsing this large and blood-soaked apron half a mile through highly populated streets only to hide it under a plank at a building site, after presumably climbing over the wooden hoarding. If this is your scenario, it seems quite improbable and entirely unexplained.

Hold your horses. We don't know how large the apron was. But if he could carry a torso, I bet he could carry an apron too. Your assertion of "highly populated streets" seems premature too. We don't know the exact time at which the body was dumped, but it seems to have been done in the small hours of the night - when the streets are often deserted. You then invent a wooden hoarding that may or may not have been there, but you forget that the Torso killer seemingly scaled a wooden hoarding somehow when dumping the Whitehall torso.
The torso may - or may not - have been stored quite near the dumping site. it was aid that there were sack imprints on the torso, if I remember correctly. If so, and if it was Lechmere who did both the killing and the dumping, how about he had the apron rag (one for you. Or one half) in the sack together with the torso, and then he brought the sack along with himself from the dumping site, with the rag inside - and when he got to St Philips, he discarded it there, the way the killer of Eddowes brought a piece of an apron with himself from the murder site and discarded it many streets away.
How impossible or unlikely would that be? Really?

Perhaps if you could give a coherent explanation why the murderer would have done this your theory would seem less like a case of confirmation bias. Or are you suggesting the apron was the murderer's? Or are you suggesting that the dismemberment occurred at St. Phillip's Church? Because, as member of the 'jury,' I fail to see how you think this 'works.'

See the above.

_{1. An apron is generally worn over the top of a chemise (among other articles of clothing) and even the chemise found with the Pinchin Street victim had been cut away and removed by the culprit to cover the neck wound and shoulder, thus the apron, had it belonged to the victim, would have been also removed during the dismemberment long before 'dumping' the corpse in Pinchin Street. Thus, I am left to ponder why you think the apron would have been taken to Pinchin Street from the scene of the crime and then take way again to St. Phillip's Church.}

See the above.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I refer you to my replies below.

The case against Lechmere is mainly built on how he was found all alone close to the freshly killed body of a Ripper victim, and how thereafter anomaly after anomaly is added to the list.


Lechmere was not found all alone close to the freshly killed body.

He saw a man approaching, who would otherwise have walked straight past without noticing the body, and drew his attention to the body.

That is obviously not the conduct of a guilty man.

Four more murders were committed in the series.

The murderer did not wait for someone to arrive on the scene in any of those four murder cases - because he was not Charles Allen Lechmere.



It then applies that if he killed Polly Nichols - and a swarm of circumstantial evidence is in line with that suggestion - then he immediately becomes the top suspect for the other Ripper murders too. And that applies regardless if we can prove that he was there or not.


The only reason you are in a position to accuse him is that he had the honesty to make his presence known to others.

There is nothing to connect him with any of the other four murders in the series.

There is no evidence that he was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London, let alone in all three of them, on the night of 29 to 30 September 1888.



If a man is found standing all alone in the street, close to a murder victim that is still warm and bleeding, and where another participator says that he is certain that he felt the victims chest move, then that man can not possibly be a very weak suspect, unless it can be proven that he could not have been the killer.


He was not found standing close to a murder victim.

The Whitechapel murderer was never found.



Like it or not, but that is how it goes. Don't ask yourself, ask the police.


The police obviously did not share your view.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

wrong. nothing contrived about it. it is significant that they were killed on or near his route to work.
Think about it. it dosnt matter if you can prove or not that he worked on days of the murder, whats important is that murder sites are near his daily track back and forth from work. hes physically near the victims. in other words, did he see them before, did he have passing knowledge of who they were, did know them even? speak with them before? did they proposition him before? all these ideas become more in the realm of possibility, or even probable when you realize. its not that he neccessarily killed on his way to work, but they happened along his work route.
no other suspect comes even close in terms of proximity then lech.

I refer you to my # 1481:

There is no evidence that Lechmere was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London on the night of 29/30 September 1888, let alone, as Stow claims, at a Pickfords depot on the same night.


There is no proof that he went to work on 9 November 1888.

If he had killed Kelly, he would have been late for work, possibly by about two hours.

That obviously did not happen.

If he did not go to work that day, why would he be in Spitalfields in the middle of the night, rather than at home with his family after arriving home following a 14-18 hour shift?

The case against him is farfetched.

[Fisherman]

I wonder how many people would agree with you, Christer, that I am wasting time by daring to express my opinion!

"Daring" Are you afraid of me...? Or are you just trying the good ol´angle of some sort of illusions of grandeur on my behalf?

You claim that there are lots and lots of circumstantial evidence supporting the take that Charles Lechmere was the killer and which appear indicative of guilt.

That is obviously exaggeration.

Maybe in your world, but not in mine. Or in James Scobies. Or in the minds of many, many so called "Lechmereians". So there's no "obviously" about it.

There is no evidence that Lechmere was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London on the night of 29/30 September 1888, let alone, as Stow claims, at a Pickfords depot on the same night.

The case against him is extremely weak.

I just told you that neither of us would claim for a fact what we cannot claim for a fact. The case against Lechmere is mainly built on how he was found all alone close to the freshly killed body of a Ripper victim, and how thereafter anomaly after anomaly is added to the list.
It then applies that if he killed Polly Nichols - and a swarm of circumstantial evidence is in line with that suggestion - then he immediately becomes the top suspect for the other Ripper murders too. And that applies regardless if we can prove that he was there or not.

The case against Lechmere is - according to many, many people who have voided their takes, the one and only case that actually looks like a very strong case, a very welcome change, many will say, to the extremely weak so called "suspects" that have been named before him.

People disagree, you know. But I will tell you one thing: If a man is found standing all alone in the street, close to a murder victim that is still warm and bleeding, and where another participator says that he is certain that he felt the victims chest move, then that man can not possibly be a very weak suspect, unless it can be proven that he could not have been the killer.
Like it or not, but that is how it goes. Don't ask yourself, ask the police.

[Fiver]

There were at least three bloody articles of clothing mentioned in the press during the flap over the Pinchin Street case alone.

I see I'm not the only one who noticed that.

A "coarse apron" found near the St Phillip's Church.

"Some bloodstained clothing" found in Batty Street

A "bloodstained undergarment found at half-past seven in a vacant yard in Hooper-street."

Fisherman's repeated, deliberate ignoring of all except the one found last and farthest from the Pinchin Street Torso tells us far more about Fisherman than it does about the case.

[Herlock Sholmes]

None of them said 3.00, as you should be aware. But a majority of them did mention a timing, namely 3.30. That timing was - generally - supplied with a "around": "I left hoe at around 3.30".

That more or less translates to "I cannot say exactly when I left home, but my best guess is 3.30. Since I am not sure, it may have been some time before or after 3.30, but if you need me to name an approximate time, then that time is 3.30".

I have explained this a thousand times by now, but it seems utterly lost on you. You somehow believe that the opposite of "I left home at around 3.30" is not "I did not leave home at 3.30" but instead "I left home at around 3.30".

If it had not been for this exchange, I am sure I could well have answered "3.30" if anybody asked me "What time did he say he left home?", and I would have had no nefarious intentions at all in doing so. Nor would I have contemplated which options I had for deceiving people before I gave my answer. It could also be that I answe3red the question "around 3.30".

Any which way, I would not consider any of the two answers very controversial, for the reasons given above. And above. And above. And above. And above. And above.
And above that.

Nor would I have presented a lie in saying so.

What I would have done would have been to miss out on giving the full picture, and it should preferably be given. I have stated that too in the above. And above. And above. And above. And above. And above.
And above that.

If you think that amounts to giving you there right to claim that I am dishonest, it only tells me that you are the one who is dishonest.

If you claim that you have proved me a liar, it is instead yourself you have proven a liar.

If you have any further complaints at all about something that I have already explained a thousand times, take your complaints elsewhere.

Thoroughly disgraceful obfuscation. You simply will not answer the question will you? Will I give in and let it go? Nope.

Please stop talking about the usage of ‘around. This is not the issue and you know it.

In Cutting Point you said:

“Most papers speak of Lechmere saying that he left home at 3.30, but the time 3.20 is also mentioned in one paper.”

So you read the various Press reports and counted them so that you could arrive at “most papers.”

I hope that you’re grasping this?

So how did you manage to do that Fish? How did you manage to count the reports to decide how many said ‘3.30’ and how many said ‘around 3.30,’ and manage to arrive at the totally wrong conclusion that ‘most papers’ said ‘3.00.’

How could you have possible counted incorrectly?


Stop wriggling and answer this childishly simple question. I’ll help you. Try beginning your answer with the words……I read those reports and counted them incorrectly due to…..

[rjpalmer]

And a discarded piece of cloth - regardless if it is an apron, part of an apron or any other fabric or attire - IS a rag.

Hello Christer.

Alas, this will probably be my last response to you, as I find that when I challenge your interpretations on any given point you have an annoying habit of becoming unduly huffy as if I have accused you of dishonesty, which I did not accuse you of. These sorts of games have a real dampening effect on any attempt at reasonable debate or discussion.

Earlier you argued that a 'portion of a woman's attire' indicates that it was only a partial piece of cloth and thus a rag, and I then pointed out that you were misusing the word 'attire' as a single piece of clothing, which it is not.

You now justify calling it a rag because it was 'discarded' under a plank.

So, if I decide to hide my heavy coat or my new pants or any other article of clothing under a plank, it becomes a 'rag,' does it?

And you feel justified in calling it a rag even if the apron was otherwise brand spanking new---which, as far as we know, it could have been?

Thank you, Christer, for explaining this most inventive use of the English language.

As for me, I will continue to call 'the suspicious garment' what the contemporaries called it: "a coarse apron, such is usually worn by the poorer classes of the East End"---without the slightest hint that it wasn't the complete apron.

It really does leave me wondering why you are so insistent in not calling it what it was.

---

You ask: do I consider this apron, and its location, to be a coincidence?

No. I consider to be one of the many articles of bloody clothing discovered by ordinary citizens during the murder cluster of 1888-1891 and then described in the press---only one of which--Kate Eddowes' partial piece of apron--has any conclusive relevance to our inquires.

There were at least three bloody articles of clothing mentioned in the press during the flap over the Pinchin Street case alone.

Thus, you took the one article of clothing among these many articles of clothing mentioned in 1888-1891 that seemed appropriate to your prosecution of Charles Lechmere and noticed that it was in found along a straight path--as the crow flies---between the railway arch and Doveton Street.

If that excites you, so be it. I don't find it exciting for several reasons, one of which is that you have never explained, to my knowledge, why you think a man would bring the bloody apron to his murderous 'dump site' in the first place¹ only to carry it away again, traipsing this large and blood-soaked apron half a mile through highly populated streets only to hide it under a plank at a building site, after presumably climbing over the wooden hoarding. If this is your scenario, it seems quite improbable and entirely unexplained.

Perhaps if you could give a coherent explanation why the murderer would have done this your theory would seem less like a case of confirmation bias. Or are you suggesting the apron was the murderer's? Or are you suggesting that the dismemberment occurred at St. Phillip's Church? Because, as member of the 'jury,' I fail to see how you think this 'works.'

_{1. An apron is generally worn over the top of a chemise (among other articles of clothing) and even the chemise found with the Pinchin Street victim had been cut away and removed by the culprit to cover the neck wound and shoulder, thus the apron, had it belonged to the victim, would have been also removed during the dismemberment long before 'dumping' the corpse in Pinchin Street. Thus, I am left to ponder why you think the apron would have been taken to Pinchin Street from the scene of the crime and then take way again to St. Phillip's Church.}

[Abby Normal]

On the contrary!

Your answers to my post render the case against Lechmere unsupportable.

Edward Stow admitted to me that he cannot say whether Lechmere went to work on the days when either Chapman or Kelly were murdered.

Yet he claimed that it is significant that they were murdered on Lechmere's alleged routes to work.

That is once again a contrived case.

wrong. nothing contrived about it. it is significant that they were killed on or near his route to work.
Think about it. it dosnt matter if you can prove or not that he worked on days of the murder, whats important is that murder sites are near his daily track back and forth from work. hes physically near the victims. in other words, did he see them before, did he have passing knowledge of who they were, did know them even? speak with them before? did they proposition him before? all these ideas become more in the realm of possibility, or even probable when you realize. its not that he neccessarily killed on his way to work, but they happened along his work route.
no other suspect comes even close in terms of proximity then lech.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I wonder how many people would agree with you, Christer, that I am wasting time by daring to express my opinion!

You claim that there are lots and lots of circumstantial evidence supporting the take that Charles Lechmere was the killer and which appear indicative of guilt.

That is obviously exaggeration.

There is no evidence that Lechmere was in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or the City of London on the night of 29/30 September 1888, let alone, as Stow claims, at a Pickfords depot on the same night.

The case against him is extremely weak.

[Fisherman]

On the contrary!

Your answers to my post render the case against Lechmere unsupportable.

Edward Stow admitted to me that he cannot say whether Lechmere went to work on the days when either Chapman or Kelly were murdered.

Yet he claimed that it is significant that they were murdered on Lechmere's alleged routes to work.

That is once again a contrived case.

No, my answers to your post do not render the case against Lechmere unsupportable at all. It leaves the case where it always was, with lots and lots of circumstantial evidence supporting the take that Charles Lechmere was the killer, but with no absolute proof that he must have been.

When I answered no to your questions if a number of parameters could be claimed as facts, that was the exact reason: They cannot, they appear indicative of guilt, not least by their sheer numbers, but that is as far as it goes. Even the most brilliant of cases can be purely circumstantial.

Have a look at this one, and you will see what I mean.

Edward Stow is also quite aware of how the case, although a very strong one, cannot be conclusively proven. You proudly state that he "admitted" to you that he could not say with certainty that Lechmere went to work on the Chapman and Kelly murder mornings.
As if he or anybody else with case insight would have claimed something else?
What did you think he was going to say?
That he could prove it?

If you have nothing more to offer than the bleeding obvious, you might as well not offer anything at all. You are merely wasting time by these kinds of posts.

[Fisherman]

Simply responding to a question with a question won’t work.

When you researched you book what led you state that the majority of newspapers said ‘3.00’ when they obviously didn’t?

None of them said 3.00, as you should be aware. But a majority of them did mention a timing, namely 3.30. That timing was - generally - supplied with a "around": "I left hoe at around 3.30".

That more or less translates to "I cannot say exactly when I left home, but my best guess is 3.30. Since I am not sure, it may have been some time before or after 3.30, but if you need me to name an approximate time, then that time is 3.30".

I have explained this a thousand times by now, but it seems utterly lost on you. You somehow believe that the opposite of "I left home at around 3.30" is not "I did not leave home at 3.30" but instead "I left home at around 3.30".

If it had not been for this exchange, I am sure I could well have answered "3.30" if anybody asked me "What time did he say he left home?", and I would have had no nefarious intentions at all in doing so. Nor would I have contemplated which options I had for deceiving people before I gave my answer. It could also be that I answe3red the question "around 3.30".

Any which way, I would not consider any of the two answers very controversial, for the reasons given above. And above. And above. And above. And above. And above.
And above that.

Nor would I have presented a lie in saying so.

What I would have done would have been to miss out on giving the full picture, and it should preferably be given. I have stated that too in the above. And above. And above. And above. And above. And above.
And above that.

If you think that amounts to giving you there right to claim that I am dishonest, it only tells me that you are the one who is dishonest.

If you claim that you have proved me a liar, it is instead yourself you have proven a liar.

If you have any further complaints at all about something that I have already explained a thousand times, take your complaints elsewhere.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And you have proven me a liar ... how?

Because, you se, Herlock, THAT is what this is all about.

You have never answered that question other than in the form "but surely I must be correct".

And as a fair few of us know, that is not necessarily the case.

So lets see your proof now, Herlock. It's been weeks.

A minor detail: Saying that Lechmere said that he left home at 3.30 is NOT the "opposite" of saying that he said he left home at around 3.30. It is in fact very, very, very far from the opposite.

Unless I lie about it.

Simply responding to a question with a question won’t work.

When you researched you book what led you state that the majority of newspapers said ‘3.00’ when they obviously didn’t?