Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[John Wheat]

What Stow is doing to Lechmere is similar to what Cornwell has done to Sickert.

Stow has so far suggested that Lechmere was responsible for six (if he agrees with Holmgren about Tabram; if not, I suppose he will threaten to sue me) Whitechapel murders, four Torso murders, and the murder of Rose Mylett.

Cornwell has accused Sickert of the Whitechapel murders, the murder of John Gill in Bradford, the murder of Caroline Winter near Newcastle, and the Camden Town murder, which took place two decades after the earlier murders.

She claimed that Sickert had murdered more than twenty people.

Someone here once suggested that Aaron Kosminski had committed other murders.

I would like to see a scintilla of evidence that any of these three people ever killed anyone.

Absolutely Private Investigator I agree with you totally.

[Fiver]

I have made the same point myself, but it is not an answer to my question.

You ignoring the answer doesn't mean I didn't give one.

[Fiver]

Clark's Yard, between 184 and 186 Poplar High Street, was seven addresses away from the Pickfords 'receiving office' we have seen advertised as being at no.170. Clark's Yard is also less than 300 yards from the site of the large Pickford's depot on the other side of the road.

Pickfords didn't set up an office at 170 Poplar High Street until after 1899.

And Mylett's death did not match the Ripper's MO.

[Fiver]

If the above contained good faith questions, I would happily respond to them. As it is, it's just spattercrap, and I leave you sitting in it.

PI asked a lot of legitimate questions. Your inability to answer them shows how weak the case against Lechmere is.

I wrote about the Poplar sites for the sake of interested newbies and passers-by -- who will already have been thinking 'Could Lechmere have found himself legitimate 3.45am access to a new killing-ground, once he'd used up so many locations in the old home-work-family triangle?'

Feel free to provide any evidence that Lechemre was the Ripper. Or that Mylett was a Ripper victim. Or that Lechmere had any reason to be near a site what wouldn't belong to Pickfords for over a decade.

[Aethelwulf]

Or that Mylett was a Ripper victim.

I think most people would agree this is unlikely. The point I was making on the other thread was that if a ripper suspect has the same somewhat unusual strangulation MO as the person that killed Mylett, and was living one mile away at the time, that should not just be dismissed lightly. The person that killed mylett used a cord in such a way as to pass it around her throat leaving only a small gap in the mark of strangulation on the left of the spine, between the spine and left ear, of 2-3 inches. Dr Brownfield thought the gap on the left was caused by her attacker standing slightly to her left and crossing his hands to pull back and leave a small gap. The mark on Ellen Bury was a level line inflicted with a cord, the only break being a gap of almost two inches on the left side of the spine. It is a fair suggestion that Bury could also have stood a bit to the left and crossed his hands to create what is a near identical mark. There is a suggestion of some peculiar knot marks on the cord that was used on Mylett. Bury could have bought any piece of cord but it is interesting that he chose a knotted cord for the deed. Brownfield though Mylett's attacker may have made a study of strangulation because of the way it was done, as Bury seems to have done pretty much the same thing, it isn't unreasonable to assume the same IMO. Also consider what sort of person Bury was and that he lived and easy 20-25 minute walk away in Dec 1888, and I would say that is very interesting and suspicious.

What is not interesting or suspicious is a Pickfords depot in Poplar.

[rjpalmer]

What is not interesting or suspicious is a Pickfords depot in Poplar.

I tend to agree. In one of his videos, Stow briefly puts up an image showing the location of Pickford's receiving offices. They are scattered all over Greater London. It looks like 38 of them, and there would also be depots.

Not quite as ubiquitous as McDonald's restaurants in present-day London, admittedly (Dear God, why?), but there are enough of them that the skeptically minded could readily dismiss the one in Poplar as an unhappy coincidence.

[Aethelwulf]

I tend to agree. In one of his videos, Stow briefly puts up an image showing the location of Pickford's receiving offices. They are scattered all over Greater London. It looks like 38 of them, and there would also be depots.

Not quite as ubiquitous as McDonald's restaurants in present-day London, admittedly (Dear God, why?), but there are enough of them that the skeptically minded could readily dismiss the one in Poplar as an unhappy coincidence.

Yes I saw that as well and thought - where are the murders at the other Pickfords locations? Just shows that as Pickfords is undoubtedly a red herring (well red stickleback or reddish piece of plankton), what about the supposed mother's house and route to work? Coincidences. There is nothing else to back it up, no criminal behaviour etc. Don't a lot of serial killers have unstable employment history and short term relationships for example? Fair enough what I am suggesting could also be a coincidence, but it is a bloody sinister one.

[rjpalmer]

Pickfords didn't set up an office at 170 Poplar High Street until after 1899.

I was skeptical that Stow would make an error this egregious (I have no faith in the Lechmere theory, but he usually checks his nuts & bolts), but below is the entry for 170 High Street Poplar in the 1891 Census, and there's no Receiving Depot at that number, nor near it. The reference Stow shows in his video is filled with telephone numbers; though there were some telephones in 1888, I found that more than a little strange, as if this document actually dates to the late 1890s or later.


Maybe I'll post this info over at the "other place" and ask the Lechmere community for an explanation. Although I haven't researched it, I know the depot further down was there by 1889, because it is mentioned in reports of the Dock Strike. Cheers.

[rjpalmer]

The electoral registers for both 1888 and 1889 list 170 High Street, Poplar as a dwelling house, which also looks to be the case in 1891. I'll wait for Stow's explanation. Sometimes streets are renumbered, but I'm not seeing it.

[rjpalmer]

PI asked a lot of legitimate questions. Your inability to answer them shows how weak the case against Lechmere is.



Feel free to provide any evidence that Lechemre was the Ripper. Or that Mylett was a Ripper victim. Or that Lechmere had any reason to be near a site what wouldn't belong to Pickfords for over a decade.

According to Rob Clack, Pickford's receiving office in 1889 was at 107 High Street, Poplar. A little further down the street and on the opposite side. Ed used a later address, but there was an office on that street.

The House Of Lechmere Channel - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century (jtrforums.com)

Thanks to Rob for clearing this up.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

You ignoring the answer doesn't mean I didn't give one.

I agreed with you that what Macnaghten wrote is largely wrong.

You appear to be saying that that means he was relying on his faulty memory and not on information in the files.

I have questioned why he would have written not one but two versions of his views without consulting the records.

I suggest that the records were wrong:

I enumerate the cases of 3 men against whom Police held very reasonable suspicion... it was alleged that he was sexually insane... He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum, about March 1889... his whereabouts at the time of the Whitechapel murders could never be satisfactorily accounted for.

If the above paragraph does not seem to have been garnered from official documents, what about the next?

Alice McKenzie was found on 17th July 1889 with her throat stabbed in Castle Abbey, Aldgate. No evidence was forthcoming and no arrests were made. The stab in the throat was identically the same as that in the case of (3) Frances Coles in Swallow Gardens on 13th Feb. 1891 for which Thomas Sadler, a Ship's fireman, was arrested, and - after several remands - discharged! It was subsequently ascertained that Sadler had sailed for the Baltic on 19th July '89 and was in Whitechapel on 17th the night when Alice McKenzie was killed.


Where do you imagine Macnaghten obtained those details?

[Fiver]

I was skeptical that Stow would make an error this egregious (I have no faith in the Lechmere theory, but he usually checks his nuts & bolts), but below is the entry for 170 High Street Poplar in the 1891 Census, and there's no Receiving Depot at that number, nor near it. The reference Stow shows in his video is filled with telephone numbers; though there were some telephones in 1888, I found that more than a little strange, as if this document actually dates to the late 1890s or later.


Maybe I'll post this info over at the "other place" and ask the Lechmere community for an explanation. Although I haven't researched it, I know the depot further down was there by 1889, because it is mentioned in reports of the Dock Strike. Cheers.

You've caught Butler making significant errors before.

[rjpalmer]

You've caught Butler making significant errors before.

I was by no means taking Butler/Stow's corner, but I've seen threads where he attempted to locate the precise spot where a streetlamp was located in 1888/1889 using Fire Insurance maps, etc., so I was a bit surprised to see that he used a non-contemporaneous directory to place the location of Pickford's Receiving Office considerably closer to the scene of the crime that it actually was.

Below is a map of High Street Poplar from 1893, and comparing it to earlier maps, it accurately shows what the layout would have been in 1889.

I'm straying outside my comfort level, considering there are experts on East End geography in these parts, but I think I am right in saying:

1. The purple passage on the right (pun intended) is the scene of the crime. Clark's Yard was between No. 186 and No. 188.

2. Through simple counting, No. 170, where Stow had Pickford's Office, would have been at the green circle, apparently the building on the right.

3. In reality, based on the city directory uploaded by Rob Clack, in 1889 the office was three doors down from the Queen Head's Pub (on the corner of Hale Street)---the red X on the far left and on the opposite side of the street. So that should give you a visual of the difference.


The building I highlighted in yellow is the Poplar Board of Works, which still stands and is now the Lansbury Heritage Hotel. You can readily find it on Google Earth and take a virtual tour of the area if you so choose.

[Fiver]

I was by no means taking Butler/Stow's corner...

Apologies if anything I said implied you were taking Butler's corner.

And thanks for the information.

[rjpalmer]

Apologies if anything I said implied you were taking Butler's corner.

And thanks for the information.

No worries. I didn't think you implied anything--I just wondered if my original wording might have been a bit wide of the mark.

Seeing that 'Stow' used to frequently lecture us over on JTR Forums about 'correct historical methodology,' he shouldn't mind us placing his own historical techniques under the microscope.