Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[Mark J D]

Not to mention the fact that Charles Lechmere live to the ripe old age of 71 ,he was 39 years old during the Autumn of Terror. After the last ripper murder on the 9th Nov 1888 CL went on to live another 32 years without so much as a fine for spitting on the pavement.

Do people really think that after one of the most brutal, unimaginable, most horrific murders ever committed in human history, that one Charles Lechmere just decided to hang up his knife and call it quits and blend back into family life as if nothing ever happen!!!!! ?

Your belief here seems to be that you can make the case against Lechmere seem ridiculous by first deciding that he ceased killing with Mary Kelly, and then telling me that it's absurd to suppose that he could have ceased killing with Mary Kelly. This is a strange tactic by any standards -- and adding theatrical incredulity by typing '!!!!! ?' at the end does nothing to improve it. On top of which you know perfectly well that Lechmere is actively being considered as guilty of *a whole string of additional murders*, both before and after 1888. Sneer all you like, but as far as I can see, the killing of -- for example -- Rose Mylett is one that Lechmere slots right into.

M.

[Mark J D]

the family working man argument is so weak. the history of serial killers tells us that many have been.

I'm sure you're right, old bean!

But the 'family working man' argument' is *incredibly potent psychologically* -- as we see here day after day. I think the Lechmere naysayers are, to a huge extent, merely repeating the social-psychological errors that allowed Lechmere to escape 135 years ago. It's a bias deeply ingrained -- and reinforced by all the power still possessed by the Protestant ethic. Hence the bizarre levels of *rage* we see -- and the absolutely loopy stuff we keep getting about 'putting a noose around the neck of an innocent man!'.

M.

[Aethelwulf]

Lechmere is actively being considered as guilty of *a whole string of additional murders

Surely an underestimate when you consider his known murders, assaults and crimes of any sort. I will list them, although I may have omitted some as it took such a while to wade through all the material.

Here we go:

[Aethelwulf]

Another one for the newbies and lurkers..

The supposed 'case' against Lechmere, the multi-decadal slasher and chopper boils down to nothing more than

'around 3.30'

and

'The time at which the body was found cannot have been far from 3.45 a.m'

That is the entirity of it. Nothing else. Any reasonable analysis of what 'around' and 'far from' encompass means that puff.. the magic gap is gone.

[Mark J D]

Surely an underestimate when you consider his known murders, assaults and crimes of any sort. I will list them, although I may have omitted some as it took such a while to wade through all the material.

Here we go:

Which, in my analysis, actually compresses two meanings into a single noisome belch. Translated into words, they are:

i) Lechmere can't have done these things -- because he was never caught doing other things.

ii) I am a heavily invested suspectologist whose favoured theory is dead in the water if the Ripper is admitted to have killed in London after my suspect relocated.

M.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

guess youve never heard of joseph deAngelo.

His initial modus operandi was to stalk middle-class neighborhoods at night in search of women who were alone in one-story homes,


DeAngelo sometimes spent hours in the home ransacking closets and drawers,^[94] eating food in the kitchen, drinking beer, raping the female again, or making additional threats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo

No-one accused Joseph DeAngelo of murdering women while on his way to work, or while on his way home from his mother's house.

There is no comparison.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

the family working man argument is so weak. the history of serial killers tells us that many have been.

The history of seral killers does not support the cases against Lechmere, Druitt, or Kosminski.

The family working man argument is powerful because Lechmere had five to nine hours to spend with his wife and nine children and get some sleep.

He arrives home one Saturday, possibly as late as 10.30 p.m.

We are asked to believe that about two and a half hours later, he has had dinner, walked to his mother's house, visited his mother, left his mother's house, and walked to Berner Street.

We are asked to believe that he then spent the next one and a half hours committing two murders in locations a mile apart and then travelled to a third district to leave an article of clothing, before making his way home, arriving home about 24 hours since he had last got up to go to work.

That is not believable.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

With apologies to Fishy for answering the comments below without waiting for his own refutation of them.

Your belief here seems to be that you can make the case against Lechmere seem ridiculous


There is no need to make the case against Lechmere seem ridiculous.

It is evidently ridiculous.



by first deciding that he ceased killing with Mary Kelly,


We have not decided that Lechmere stopped killing with Mary Kelly's murder; we have decided that he never started killing.



and then telling me that it's absurd to suppose that he could have ceased killing with Mary Kelly.


Can you point to any change in Lechmere's circumstances that could explain why he would have suddenly stopped committing murders or, alternatively, why he would have stopped committing that series of murders and started committing a completely different series of murders and mutilations?



This is a strange tactic by any standards -- and adding theatrical incredulity by typing '!!!!! ?' at the end does nothing to improve it. On top of which you know perfectly well that Lechmere is actively being considered as guilty of *a whole string of additional murders*, both before and after 1888. Sneer all you like, but as far as I can see, the killing of -- for example -- Rose Mylett is one that Lechmere slots right into.


Except that you have to have Lechmere leaving home extra early and taking completely the wrong route to work in order to commit that murder.

It is incredible that you even consider Lechmere as a suspect in the murder of Rose Mylett, let alone guilty of a whole string of additional murders.

[Aethelwulf]

Which, in my analysis, actually compresses two meanings into a single noisome belch. Translated into words, they are:

i) Lechmere can't have done these things -- because he was never caught doing other things.

ii) I am a heavily invested suspectologist whose favoured theory is dead in the water if the Ripper is admitted to have killed in London after my suspect relocated.

M.

now now marky parky no need to get all noisome about this.

There is no reason to suspect Lech killed nicholls, the C5 or anyone else.

[FISHY1118]

With apologies to Fishy for answering the comments below without waiting for his own refutation of them.

No worries P.I

I think you cover that response pretty much spot on .

Theses boards would be better suited and if the likes of Lechmere Maybrick and Druitt were forever banished to the section of

" Former suspects who were believed at one time to be JTR but have been shown not to be the case "

[Fiver]

Forget the 'doting husband and father' daydream, and look at that last bit. A man whose journey to work requires him to cross a particular locality within a seemingly fixed and limited time frame is in fact doing *the very opposite* of 'wandering the streets looking for women to murder'. If he's expected over in the west by a certain time, he isn't going to be diverting far to the north or south, and he isn't going to be doubling back on himself. The verb 'wander', then, is completely inappropriate, and yet another example of straw-manning in a sneery tone.

If you want to see someone staw-manning in a sneery tone, you should look at yourself in the mirror. PI's argument was flawed, but they weren't claiming that CAL was a 'doting husband and father' - that's just your parody of their claim.

Again, this is a worthless argument. If the body count was seven torsos every week, the question would very reasonably arise as to how a working man with an oppressive schedule and a family at home could find the time and premises. But what we actually have is four canonical torsos spread across 28 months, and a few more that stretch all the way from 1873 to 1902. To suggest that Lechmere couldn't have had that small number of opportunities in a 29-year period is ridiculous. As for the nonsense about 'means of transport', we are once again being treated to straw-manning. A killer working in logistics is literally the least likely person to have difficulty moving large body parts around.

Again, you are the one engaging in staw-manning.

PI's actual points were.

* Working 14 to 18 hours a day meant CAL did not have the time to be the killer. This part of PI's argument is clearly flawed.

* CAL didn't have the time to go hunting for victims on the way to work. Your statement about "a seemingly fixed and limited time frame" actually supports PI's point - If Lechmere was the Ripper, he had very little time to go looking for victims on the way to work. A far better choice would have been on the way home from work, where his return times could have varied by up to 4 hours - plenty of time to look for victims.

* CAL's large household would have made it difficult to hide victim trophies at home.

* CAL did not have any transport of his own. He was an employee of Pickford's - they owned the horses and carts, which were housed at buildings owned by Pickfords, not at Lechmere's house.

* CAL did not have anywhere to store the Torsos. You bleating about him working logisitics is meaningless. The Torso Killer clearly owned a place with room to store a decaying body undetected for days if not weeks. And the necessary tools to cut it up. And somewhere onsite to wash up and perhaps change clothing undetected. Pickfords would not have provided Lechmere with any of that.

I hope this clarifies a few things for the newbies, both factually and in terms of anti-Lechmerian psychology.

M.

If you want to clarify things factually, perhaps you should try using actual facts.

[Fiver]

So you type it all out again?

This is not worth an adult's time.

M.

Which is why you felt the need to reply to it?

[Fiver]

Your belief here seems to be that you can make the case against Lechmere seem ridiculous by first deciding that he ceased killing with Mary Kelly, and then telling me that it's absurd to suppose that he could have ceased killing with Mary Kelly. This is a strange tactic by any standards -- and adding theatrical incredulity by typing '!!!!! ?' at the end does nothing to improve it. On top of which you know perfectly well that Lechmere is actively being considered as guilty of *a whole string of additional murders*, both before and after 1888. Sneer all you like, but as far as I can see, the killing of -- for example -- Rose Mylett is one that Lechmere slots right into.

M.

Fishy doesn't have to do anything to make the case against Lechmere ridiculous because there is no case against Lechmere.

Your quibbling about who was the Ripper's last victim does nothing to refute Fishy's point. Kelly and Mylett were both murdered in 1888. The Pinchin Street Torso was found in 1889. Carrie Brown was killed in 1891. Charles Lechmere lived for for about three decades after that.

Lechmere does not "slot right into" the Mylett murder. She was probably killed while Lechmere was at work. She was killed nowhere near Lechmere's route to work. She probably wasn't killed by the Ripper - her throat was nor cut, the body was not posed, there was no mutilation.

[Fiver]

Which, in my analysis, actually compresses two meanings into a single noisome belch. Translated into words, they are:

i) Lechmere can't have done these things -- because he was never caught doing other things.

ii) I am a heavily invested suspectologist whose favoured theory is dead in the water if the Ripper is admitted to have killed in London after my suspect relocated.

M.

That makes you pretty poor at analysis then.

Athelwolf's point is that there is no evidence that Charles Allen Lechmere committed any violent crime.

You second "point" is just babbling. Nothing in what Aethelwold said in that post had anything to do with who they suspect of being the Ripper, who they consider a Ripper victim, or if their suspect relocated.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

A man whose journey to work requires him to cross a particular locality within a seemingly fixed and limited time frame is in fact doing *the very opposite* of 'wandering the streets looking for women to murder'. If he's expected over in the west by a certain time, he isn't going to be diverting far to the north or south, and he isn't going to be doubling back on himself. The verb 'wander', then, is completely inappropriate, and yet another example of straw-manning in a sneery tone.

Fiver's intervention has reminded me that I did not actually reply directly to the point you made above.

Your point that Lechmere making his way to work down Buck's Row one morning is the very opposite of someone wandering the streets looking for women to murder is exactly one of the reasons why I have argued that Lechmere was not the murderer.

Does anyone really think that during the three weeks between the murders of Chapman and Stride, the murderer did not look for any opportunities?

How could Lechmere have looked for opportunities on his way to work and what are the chances that his route on 8 September 1888 took him down Hanbury Street, at the very time that Chapman was there, and that the murder took place at such a time as to enable him to arrive at work on time?

But how does your 'fixed and limited time frame' tie Lechmere to the murder of Kelly?

It is so abundantly clear that Lechmere could not have murdered and mutilated Kelly and arrived at work on time that Christer Holmgren suggested to me that Lechmere might have had the day off.

He did not explain why Lechmere would choose to start his day off in Spitalfields.

Is it not much more likely that the murderer lived in Spitalfields, within easy reach of Hanbury Street, Dorset Street, and Goulston Street?