Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[John Wheat]

The problem imo John is that there is a small group of people who are turning this into a crusade. They are looking at Lechmere’s inside leg measurement and spinning it into evidence of guilt and it’s snowballing. The more people who read this stuff (who had no previous knowledge of the case) the more ‘converts’ they get. These aren’t the people like Abby and a few others who just believe him to be a ‘possible’ or a person of interest, these are people who have close to a religious faith and are engaged in a propaganda exercise where facts can be manipulated, evidence can be edited to suit and outlandish conclusions can be drawn. I’m loathe to mention the JFK assassination but it sometimes reminds me of Jim Garrison’s obsession with ‘propinquity.’ If Mr X knew Mr.Y and Mr Y knew Mr. Z therefore Mr X must have known Mr. Z. Or Mr X lived at Thompson Street and a mere 3 streets away lived the killers former schoolteachers brother. Coincidence? At which point all sensible people shout “of course it’s a coincidence!”

Have you ever thought of getting together with Wulf and starting a ‘House Of Bury’ Channel to try and balance it up? Who’d believe that a murderer, in the area at the time, who left for Scotland just after Kelly could have been the killer though?

Hi Herlock. I appreciate the comments about Bury but as you say who would believe Bury was the Ripper?

[Fiver]

I totally get what you're saying Herlock. It's a bit ridiculous how some posters twist things to imply Lechmere's guilt at every opportunity.

It is ridiculous.

Posters have tried to claim that Lechmere walking down the right side of the street was suspicious. They never provided a reason why it would be suspicious and ignored me when I pointed out that Robert Paul and PC Neil both said they were walking in the right side of the street.

[FrankO]

Fiver makes an excellent point when he asked why a guilty Lechmere (forward thinking enough t0 come up with the scam) didn’t lie and say that he’d heard a man running away?

Hi Mike,

According to the Star of 3 September, when he had the chance to say such a thing, he instead stated that "had anyone left the body after he had turned into Buck's-row he would have heard them."

Cheers,
Frank

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Mike,

According to the Star of 3 September, when he had the chance to say such a thing, he instead stated that "had anyone left the body after he had turned into Buck's-row he would have heard them."

Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the quote. This is Lechmere clearly doing himself no favours.

Its hard to square the behaviour of a guy who allegedly came up with plan to get past any inconvenient run-ins with a Constable by contriving a conversation with him out of Paul’s earshot (and who allegedly made an on-the-spot decision not to flee on the back of it) with the guy who missed such an obvious opportunity of suggesting the presence of a second man. Such a simple and obvious thing to have done. And as I suggested in an earlier post, he could easily have feigned breathlessness and claimed to have tried chasing the man. He could even have given the police some kind of description of a guy running away knife in hand. All pretty obvious stuff for a supposedly guilty man trying to appear innocent.

[Fiver]

Hi Mike,

According to the Star of 3 September, when he had the chance to say such a thing, he instead stated that "had anyone left the body after he had turned into Buck's-row he would have heard them."

Cheers,
Frank

Yet more proof that Charles Lechmere was either innocent or a stunningly stupid killer. Even a lot of innocent men, afraid of being accused of being the killer, would have claimed to have heard someone running away.

[The Rookie Detective]

According to the Star of 3 September, when he had the chance to say such a thing, he instead stated that "had anyone left the body after he had turned into Buck's-row he would have heard them."

This is perhaps the most clever piece of reverse psychology.

It's his way of saying that no one else could have taken credit for his work on Nichols.

If he's innocent then it reduces the time frame the real JTR had to complete his assault on Nichols and escape from the scene.

The sheer arrogance of a guilty man or the sheer stupidity of an innocent man?

[JeffHamm]

Thanks for the work, but placing a marker in the middle of the church defeats my point, which was that we only know the (probably unrelated) piece of cloth was found somewhere around the perimeter of the church. We don't have a line, we have a cone.

Ah, sorry, misunderstood the initial post. I thought you listed the streets to help me find the Church! Ok, I've marked the two outer corners of the block around St. Phillips this time, as it gets too crowded otherwise, and also the other markers would place lines inside the angle anyway. Looks messy if I add the lines starting at Pinchin Street, but as the Church is roughly 1/2 way between the two locations, it would be a similar "cone" pointing the other way.




- Jeff

[Fiver]

Ah, sorry, misunderstood the initial post. I thought you listed the streets to help me find the Church! Ok, I've marked the two outer corners of the block around St. Phillips this time, as it gets too crowded otherwise, and also the other markers would place lines inside the angle anyway. Looks messy if I add the lines starting at Pinchin Street, but as the Church is roughly 1/2 way between the two locations, it would be a similar "cone" pointing the other way.




- Jeff

Thank you. I see that I continue to be unclear. I did list the streets to help you find the church. The church was undergoing construction at the time and there was a wooden fence around the entire block. A bloody rag was found just inside the fence at an unknown spot the day after the Pinchin Street Torso was found.

The Ley Line Branch of the Church of Lechmere, Unholy be His Name claims that a ley line starting from the Pinchon Street Torso and drawn through the Church would point directly to Charles Lechmere's house. So the apex of the cone should start at Pinchin Street, not at Doveton like in your drawing.

Thank you.

[rjpalmer]

If Maria was fleeing scandal, it could also have been that her husband, John Allen Lechmere,was a bankrupt alcholic who had gotten a man dead through negligence and deserted his wife to he had shack up with a teenaged orphan 14 years his junior.

I have to question the validity of Ed Stow's statement in 'Evidence Part 4' (around the 20:05 mark) where he states that John Lechmere went to Daventry and established a "non-bigamous common law family."

Under what law or legal theory would Mrs. John Lechmere No. 2 be considered his "common law" wife if Maria was still alive?

[Fiver]

This is perhaps the most clever piece of reverse psychology.

It's his way of saying that no one else could have taken credit for his work on Nichols.

If he's innocent then it reduces the time frame the real JTR had to complete his assault on Nichols and escape from the scene.

The sheer arrogance of a guilty man or the sheer stupidity of an innocent man?

It's only a stupid thing to say if Lechmere were the killer.

So either he's an idiot or he's innocent - just every interaction that he had with Robert Paul and PC Mizen.

[Fiver]

I have to question the validity of Ed Stow's statement in 'Evidence Part 4' (around the 20:05 mark) where he states that John Lechmere went to Daventry and established a "non-bigamous common law family."

Under what law or legal theory would Mrs. John Lechmere No. 2 be considered his "common law" wife if Maria was still alive?

Standard behavior for the Misogyny Sect of the Church of Lechmere, Unholy Be His Name - do everything you can to demean CAL's mother while making excuses for the alcoholic deadbeat dad who abandoned the family to shack up with a teenage orphan.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Fiver,

Thank you. I see that I continue to be unclear. I did list the streets to help you find the church. The church was undergoing construction at the time and there was a wooden fence around the entire block. A bloody rag was found just inside the fence at an unknown spot the day after the Pinchin Street Torso was found.

The Ley Line Branch of the Church of Lechmere, Unholy be His Name claims that a ley line starting from the Pinchon Street Torso and drawn through the Church would point directly to Charles Lechmere's house. So the apex of the cone should start at Pinchin Street, not at Doveton like in your drawing.

Thank you.

No problem. Third times a charm, eh?

[Fiver]

His rational, in the 'Grave of Jack the Ripper' video is that she "lied" (Stow's word) about being a widow on the marriage record.

John Lechmere was still alive, but I fail to see how Stow can know with any certainty that she hadn't assumed the worst (or the best!) about her AWOL husband. Maybe it was an optimistic or convenient assumption--one that many abandoned women were glad to make--but Ed is merely guessing. It could be a good guess or a bad guess, but he hardly has any conclusive evidence.

Personally, I don't think it is a coincidence that the marriage took place 7 years after she can be seen living apart from John Lechmere in the 1851 census. (6 years and 11 months, but who knows how long before the 1851 census that they were Splitsville). A more nuanced observer might argue that she was trying to make a plausible effort to stay within the letter of the law or within what constituted generally acceptable behavior among her peers.

Agreed on all points. There certainly are errors on the records, but Butler assumes they are deliberate falsifications.

Of course, Butler doesn't apply the same standard to John Allen Lechmere and Ann Masters.

The 1861 Census says they were married and shaves 4 years off of John's age. So does the 1871 Census.

[Newbie]

Facts are stubborn things.



Springheeled Jack could have bounded straight over the rooftops. Mere mortals have to actually use streets.

You're also really, really bad at geometry. A straight line drawn from Mitre Square through the Goulston Street location doesn't come within a half mile of Charles Lechmere's home.



The Goulson Street Graffito was 1/3 of a mile from the route Charles Lechmere took to work on the morning Nichols was killed. That was also the same route that Robert Paul took. It was close to the routes that thousands took every day, since it went by Spitalfields Market.

The GSG was far closer to Commercial Street, Algate High Street, Whitechapel High Street, Whitechapel Road, and East Commercial Road down which more thousands passed every single day.



Your double standard is noted. Charles Lechmere is a creep and probably the Ripper for going to get help for a dead or dying woman, but Robert Paul is not.

Nichols body was found around 3:40am. The only open business nearby was the horse slaughterers on Winslow street. Lechmere and Paul could have woken the neighbors, but that would require them to wake up, get dressed, and it still wouldn't have been any help since none of them were doctors.

Lechmere and Paul sought out the nearest police constable and passed the buck to them. Hanging around would have been no help to Polly Nichols, neither Lechmere nor Paul was a doctor.



It was so "loud" that Emma Green and her family, Harriet Lilley, Patrick Mulshaw, and Walter Purkiss and his family didn't hear Lechmere or Paul.



There is no doubt that Robert Paul believed it was a dangerous neighborhood. He would have just walked by and ignored Nichols if Lechemre hadn't stopped him. None of which has anything to do with whether Lechmere was the Ripper.



Robert Paul never said those things. He said he saw Lechmere in the middle of the road, but Paul never said what that distance was. Robert Paul never said anything about when he heard Lechmere.



That is an assumption on your part.



You ignoring evidence does not make it go away. Charles Allen Lechmere publicly gave his home and work address at the inquest, along with his first and middle names and his stepfather's surname. He was not hiding his identity from his family, his neighbors, the police, the press, his employers, or his coworkers.



You introduced the laundry list. It's not my fault that your laundry list is a mix of errors and assumptions instead of evidence.

I introduced the laundry list because a previous poster inquired as to the arguments Lechmerites pose as to a belief in his guilt.
So, I obliged .... his list was incomplete.

I'd rather focus on one of these 'errors' at a time; anything else would be a superficial exchange of sound bites.

How about the 'error' that Lechmere and Paul did not know of the other's existence until Lechmere was at the point of Polly Nichols body?


"It looked like a tarpaulin sheet, but walking to the middle of the road he (Lechmere) saw that it was the figure of a woman. At the same time, he heard a man about forty yards away coming up Buck's Row in the direction that the witness had come from." - East London Observer

So if Lechmere was walking about 50 yards ahead of Paul for quite some time, how did either not notice the other?

The notion that the sounds of their own footsteps masked the sounds of the other's does not conform to what neuroscientists currently understand about our auditory system. In terms of self generated repetitive sounds, such as walking, the audio cortex, responding to signals from the motor cortex, selectively cancels out sounds that it has learned will come from a particular motion. From an evolutionary stand point, what benefit would be accrued if your auditory system did not discriminate, and you got locked into hearing your footsteps as you walk?

I posted comments and links to these studies in my next text.

So the issue is twofold:

1. Would they have been paying attention to their surroundings - maybe they were just inattentive? Common sense will tell you that that can't be true - Buck's row was a dangerous street. Paul, in his interview with Loyd's of London reporter said:

"Few people like to come up and down here without being on their guard, for there are such terrible gangs about."

2. Did Paul's/Lechmere's footsteps pass a certain decibel threshold? And the answer would be absolutely. PC O'Neil testified at the inquest that, while standing next to Polly Nichols body, he heard the other PC's footsteps down at the intersection of Brady - some 120 + yards away.

" I heard a constable passing Brady-street, so I called him." - Loyd's weekly

Since neither Paul nor Lechmere indicated as to being aware of the (some claim that certain locations had lighting) the other, it is not credible that Lechmere was some 50 yards ahead. The conclusion is that either Lechmere was lying or both had hearing problems (and since they seemed to respond to the questions at the inquest without problems, we can rule the latter out).

Lechmere lied; there is no way of avoiding that conclusion. If he was not about 50 yards ahead, as he claimed, the next question is how much sooner did he arrive at the location of Polly Nichols body?

And when did he start telling the truth?

[Newbie]

BRAIN HAS NATURAL NOISE-CANCELLING CIRCUIT


Motor cortex tells auditory cortex to ignore walking sounds
KARL LEIF BATES @DUKERESEARCH

To ensure that a mouse hears the sounds of an approaching cat better than it hears the sounds its own footsteps make, the mouse’s brain has a built-in noise-cancelling circuit.

It’s a direct connection from the motor cortex of the brain to the auditory cortex that says essentially, “we’re running now, pay no attention to the sound of my footsteps.”

“What’s special about this cancellation process is that the brain learns to turn off responses to predictable self-generated sounds,” said Richard Mooney, the George Barth Geller professor of neurobiology. “You can watch as these responses disappear as a function of time and experience.” ......

https://today.duke.edu/2018/09/brain-has-natural-noise-cancelling-circuit

We May Hear Others’ Footsteps, but How Do We Ignore Our Own?


“The ability to ignore one’s own footsteps requires the brain to store and recall memories and to make some pretty stellar computations,” explains David Schneider, an assistant professor at New York University’s Center for Neural Science and one of the paper’s lead authors.

https://neurosciencenews.com/noise-cancel-brain-9851/

Why Can We Hear Others' Footsteps, But Not Our Own?


By: Alia Hoyt

You're walking down a deserted street and suddenly you hear footsteps. Someone might be following you, you think. Because, although the street is quiet, your own footsteps would never register with you — just those of a stranger's. So why is it we can't hear the noises we make ourselves?

Scientists have long known that we are capable of tuning out our own personal noises, but were previously in the dark about how the brain accomplishes this feat, exactly. The results of a new study, published in the journal Nature, aims to amp up our understanding of this phenomenon by focusing on footsteps.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/why-can-hear-others-footsteps-but-not-own.htm

Precise movement-based predictions in the mouse auditory cortex


Introduction

As animals interact with the world, many of the sensations they encounter are caused by their own actions. Accurately anticipating both the sensory features and timing of these self-generated stimuli is crucial to a variety of behaviors, such as using auditory input to guide ongoing vocalizations, or determining if footsteps are self-generated or belong to a predator. The brain’s ability to predict the sensory consequences of actions is thought to involve the integration of internally generated motor signals with incoming sensory information using learned internal model. This computation, referred to as predictive processing, is hypothesized to improve sensory processing by diminishing neural responses to expected stimuli while enhancing neural responses to new or unexpected stimuli and provides a viable substrate for sensory-guided motor learning

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960982222016062

How our brain filters sounds


Auditory NeuroscienceFeaturedNeuroscience
·September 6, 2019 Summary: The brain adjusts the attention it gives to identical sounds the moment they are perceived in the brainstem.

Source: University of Geneva
https://neurosciencenews.com/sound-filter-14882/