Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[FrankO]

The missing two days from work, looks to make more sense if he is called for 3rd , but not used, then actually appears on 17th.

Appearing on 17th , then being called back but not appearing on the next day is I suggest less likely, although it can't be ruled out.

That's how I see it too, Steve. But what's in the way of actually believing it is the Daily News of the 3rd of September relates about an interview held "last night" with Inspector Helson, in which Paul or what he could have told the police isn't mentioned. In other words, it seems as though they were still in the dark about Paul, Cross and Mizen on Sunday night. But maybe they had already spoken to Paul without having it confirmed by "the other man" or the policeman spoken to and, so, they didn't mention it yet.

Lloyds printed a copy on Friday night/Saturday morning.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any copies of the Saturday edition.

Wasn't it a Sunday Weekly only, or are you just saying that they printed copies earlier too, that only hit the streets on Sunday, together with the copies carrying the special Sunday or extra special Sunday lines?

Cheers,
Frank

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nice work Jeff, there is similar in the chapter on the meeting of Lechmere and Paul in Inside Bucks Row.

In addition here is a screenshot on the possible escape routes for a killer, with distances and a range of walking speeds.

I do accept that the distances, may all be a yard or so out, and differe slightly from yours , i expect this is dependent on the exact points used for the measurement, and the exact lines plotted, but they are in the same region.( we are i think both usinging the measuring tool at the NLS site).

Hi Abby,

One point that I’d have to make on the ‘caught in the act’ scenario would be that it would impact on any suggestion of Lechmere leaving the house earlier due to the fact that the act of killing and mutilating Nichols could have been achieved in under two minutes. So if Paul interrupted him then he could only have been there for a minute or two. This would leave us with Lechmere running into Nichols around 20 minutes before he was due to begin work and with a distance still to walk.

I just can’t accept for a second that Lechmere, no more than 20 minutes from work, bumps into Nichols and just can’t control himself and so decides to kill and mutilate her (with the risk of getting blood on him that he couldn’t have seen in the dark requiring a clean up that would have made him even later [leaving him having to find somewhere light enough to check himself over whilst doing it out of sight])

I just don’t see it Abby. I genuinely see Lechmere as one of the weaker suspects and absolutely no different to the millions of others who have discovered bodies over the years.

As we’ve said Abby we will have to agree to disagree on the subject of Lechmere and I have way too much respect for you to suggest that you would do anything but give your unbiased opinion.

[FrankO]

Remember, we're not talking about Paul suddenly coming upon him as in opening a door right next to him, or just across the street. Paul is still around 120 feet (40 yards) away when he reports seeing Cross/Lechmere in the middle of the street - so Cross/Lechmere would have to have become aware of Paul before that in order to move to the middle of the street. And he has to move quietly and cautiously, in order not to be seen. Let's say during Cross/Lechmere's cautious shift to the middle of the street allowed Paul to walk 10 yards (about 6 seconds). That places Paul at around 150 feet when Cross/Lechmere notices him, which is about 1/3rd the distance to the east end of Buck's row, so it's not like Paul is on top of him, and while it may risk him being seen walking away from the body, the very act of moving to the middle of the street does the same thing anyway! The difference is that sticking around leaves him at a greater risk of being identified! So he isn't concerned about being identified by Paul, but he is concerned about being seen as a shadowy figure walking down the street, but not concerned about being seen as a shadowy figure that only walks from the body to the middle of the street?

Hi Jeff,

This mirrors my thoughts almost to a tee. What I just can’t see is how a guilty Lechmere could have been caught unawares. Because, just as you say, Paul wasn’t (and couldn’t even have been) suddenly on top of him.

If we are to believe a guilty Lechmere stayed put, then we have to believe that someone with every reason to listen either didn’t listen for too long or did but ignored it until Paul was too close for comfort. Or, of course, he heard him the moment he turned into Buck’s Row but just wanted to stay & play around with Paul and, after that, with whatever or whoever came along further down the line, ignoring the very real possibility that they would walk into beat copper Neil shorty after leaving the body.

With Neil’s evidence of hearing Thain pass in Brady Street, I find none of these possibilities appealing or even believable. Certainly when adding my view that no criminal wants to get caught in the act and will get away while he can.

Cheers,
Frank

[Aethelwulf]

maybe thats the problem jeff, because serial killers are not simple fellows and do complicated and inexplicable things. is btk sending letters to the police that leads to his eventual capture paradoxical? he dosnt want to get caught yet does something uneeded that leads to his arrest. hes smart and stupid. paradoxical logic? obviously not it happened. does dahmer comfronting police while one of his victims is in their presence and then even leading them to his apartment where one of his dead victims is paradoxical? even in the ripper case we have something similar-does bury, a cunning con man, walking into a police station trying to claim his wife comitted suicide make any sense? and on it goes with serial killers. theyre complicated and do weird things. risky things. stupid things that sometimes lead to their capture. they dont operate under the same logic as you and I.

but yes i agree with you most of the time they would flee, but not always. certainly therefor you cant rule out lechmere based on this he would have run idea. certainly you understand that logic.

i think the difference is some these are considered actions. didn't btk send a letter to the police saying can you trace a disk? They say no. Sends a disk and there's his name. Bury had days to think about it and spent a couple listending to court cases, then decided to try and brazen it out. IMO, a suspect being caught literally red handed at a crime scene would leg it. It could be different if paul had just turned a corner and was on Lechmere, but he's a long way off, more than enough time to leave. Add to that there is literally nothing to suggest Lech killed anyone...

[Elamarna]

That's how I see it too, Steve. But what's in the way of actually believing it is the Daily News of the 3rd of September relates about an interview held "last night" with Inspector Helson, in which Paul or what he could have told the police isn't mentioned. In other words, it seems as though they were still in the dark about Paul, Cross and Mizen on Sunday night. But maybe they had already spoken to Paul without having it confirmed by "the other man" or the policeman spoken to and, so, they didn't mention it yet.


Wasn't it a Sunday Weekly only, or are you just saying that they printed copies earlier too, that only hit the streets on Sunday, together with the copies carrying the special Sunday or extra special Sunday lines?

Cheers,
Frank

Hi Frank,

On the 3rd report, several points:
When it speaks of up until last night. It mentions clues to the identity of the killer.
One might argue that Paul and Lechmere added nothing to that, and so might not be mentioned.
The story was clearly in the public domain by the Sunday afternoon, and it's I suggest inconceivable that the police were not aware of it.
If we argue that they knew of it but did not believe it, we have the issue of have they not spoken to Mizen? Had he not made an official report?

The part of this report in which Neil denies he was called to the body, simply cannot apply to the Lloyds account I submit, as it made no mention of such.
Rather I suggest it refers to the garbled story from the Star on 31st and regionals on 1st, which claimed he was called to the body.

I consider this report on 3rd to be more of a collection of separate comments. Rather than one press release

Again, I can only suggest you have a look at INSIDE BUCKS ROW, it's explained in great detail.

I reported in last October's update of Inside Bucks Row that the paper was printed in several editions, this information was found in a copy of the paper itself.

The Friday/Saturday printing was specifically said to be in place at its destinationd from Saturday noon onwards.
If it was actually sold at that stage, seems impossible to establish, ( however, the 12 noon on Saturday suggests to me that it was avaliable before midnight ).
In anyevent the police would I suggest have access to it, if they wanted it.

A copy of the notice is in next post.



Steve

[Elamarna]

Here is a copy of the notice from Lloyds.

[FrankO]

Hi Frank,
I reported in last October's update of Inside Bucks Row that the paper was printed in several editions, this information was found in a copy of the paper itself.

The Friday/Saturday printing was specifically said to be in place at its destinationd from Saturday noon onwards.
If it was actually sold at that stage, seems impossible to establish, ( however, the 12 noon on Saturday suggests to me that it was avaliable before midnight ).
In anyevent the police would I suggest have access to it, if they wanted it.

A copy of the notice is in next post.



Steve

Thanks Steve, and quite interesting.

Frank

[JeffHamm]

maybe thats the problem jeff, because serial killers are not simple fellows and do complicated and inexplicable things. is btk sending letters to the police that leads to his eventual capture paradoxical? he dosnt want to get caught yet does something uneeded that leads to his arrest. hes smart and stupid. paradoxical logic? obviously not it happened. does dahmer comfronting police while one of his victims is in their presence and then even leading them to his apartment where one of his dead victims is paradoxical? even in the ripper case we have something similar-does bury, a cunning con man, walking into a police station trying to claim his wife comitted suicide make any sense? and on it goes with serial killers. theyre complicated and do weird things. risky things. stupid things that sometimes lead to their capture. they dont operate under the same logic as you and I.

but yes i agree with you most of the time they would flee, but not always. certainly therefor you cant rule out lechmere based on this he would have run idea. certainly you understand that logic.

Hi Abby,

Yah, Serial Killers do some weird things. Radar, though, believed he couldn't be traced, and indeed, for the most part he was right. He got lazy, or over confident if you prefer, and wanted to send his messages on a computer disk rather than go through the efforts he did to make multiple photo copies of photo copies (so the typewriter couldn't be traced). He enjoyed toying with the police, and the panic he caused in the area, but he went to lengths to not get caught. His mistake was that he believed the police when they told him (via correspondence in the news) that they couldn't trace a document on a floppy (and of course, the header information contains things like who the software is registered to, and the user logged onto the machine! Radar was surprised, and a bit upset, that the police had lied to him! He thought they enjoyed playing his game too, like it was just a friendly competition between them!).

Anyway, my issue, though, is that the "they do weird things card" gets played too often with Cross/Lechmere. Not just the decision not to flee when Paul is over 40 yards away (he has to get to the middle of the street after all), but why doesn't he let Paul just walk by when it is clear he's trying to? and so on (all the points have been raised before so I won't go through them all again). To me it seems like almost everything he does requires the "they just do weird things" card, because otherwise his actions make no sense for a guilty person. And if the "serial killers do weird things" card has to be played that often, it starts to look overplayed. Sure, one or two actions, maybe, particularly if he's been at it for awhile and is getting cocky and over confident. But on the very first murder (or 2nd, if you include Tabram), he's already acting like Radar, who had been successful at staying hidden for over 20 years? Or Dahmer, who had multiple victims by that point, with bodies in the fridge (so probably not of the soundest mind)?

I don't buy it. I do get you've got a different view, which is fine obviously - I certainly don't think my opinion is the only one that could be right, or the only one to be considered. I'm not trying to convince you you're wrong, or get you to change your mind, just spelling out my own thoughts and views for whatever they are worth. I know you've thought a lot about the case, and you don't have any particular suspect to push, which is the same as me. I just find Cross/Lechmere, while worthy of being looked at, seems to me to have been looked at and nothing has surfaced that connects him to the case as anything other than some guy who found the first of the C5. I just get the impression that if he left home as little as 2 minutes later, we would be arguing about Paul the Ripper instead, and Cross/Lechmere would be the fellow who disturbed him instead?

- Jeff

[Elamarna]

Thanks Steve, and quite interesting.

Frank

I accept it's not conclusive that it was on sale before Sunday 00.00, but it seems at least very possible.

[FrankO]

And, perhaps more importantly, why wouldn’t it have surprised Paul immediately (or even later on) that he hadn’t heard Lechmere walk ahead of him if he’d been so alert?

This is rather similar to Mizen, actually. According to Mizen's own testimony, Lechmere told him hardly anything, just that there was a woman lying in Buck's Row and that a policeman wanted him there.

So, what happens when he gets there? He finds out that the woman's throat actually has been severely cut! So, no sleeping, fainted, ill, drunken or even just a dead woman, but a dead and possibly a murdered woman! Does that surprise him at all?

It would have been normal, it would have been normal for him to have at least wondered why the carman didn't tell him anything about the actual severity of the situation (just like he stated when giving his testimony at the inquest: that Lechmere didn't say anything about murder or suicide). So, at the inquest he seems to lamely complain about it, but it seems that it did nothing to him when he actually discovered that it was a murder or suicide.

Odd that. But quite in line with Mizen not asking any questions when being told so little by Lechmere and, if he was actually lied to by Lechmere & knowing this, seemingly not taking any action shortly after the inquest or when more murdered women started to show up.

[Fiver]

....the gsg and eddowes bloody apron, is on a route from mitre square back to his home.

he bloody apron doesn't point at Charles Lechmere or anyone else.

Pick your line, define close as necessary, and whatever you do, do not present any actual empirical studies that show connecting the dots in any of these ways is informative, or that your definition of close is objectively supportable.

- Jeff

[Fiver]

lets strip away the over egging and errors of newbie and some of the other over zealous lechmerians and what do we have?

a man who was seen alone with a freshly killed victim, who by all witness accounts and the evidence is clearly in the frame for her murder, whos route to work and where his mum lived is very near the murder sites, who had a material discrepency with what happened with a pc on the scene, who lived in the area for along time, and fits the local avg joe profile to a t. and the only clue the ripper ever left, the gsg and eddowes bloody apron, is on a route from mitre square back to his home.

* He was seen alone near the body. OTOH, he didn't just walk off and neither Robert Paul nor PC Mizen noticed any blood on him.

* The timing say that Lechmere could have killed Nichols. But she was not the only victim. Chapman was killed after Lechmere started work. Killing Stride and Eddowes would have required Lechmere to stay up for 23 hours straight or get up at least 3 hours early on his day off.

* Charles Lechmere and his family lived and worked in the area. That describes almost all of the hundreds of suspects.

* Charles Lechmere's testimony disagreed with PC Mizen's on some points. Robert Paul's testimony supported Lechmere's accounts, not Mizen's.

* Charles Lechmere had lived in the area a long time. That describes almost all of the hundreds of suspects.

* Charles Lechmere did look like an average joe. Since when is living an ordinary life evidence of guilt?

* The piece of Eddowes apron does not point to Charles Lechmere or anyone else.

[Fiver]

james hardiman? the son of a peripheral witness of the chapman murder and someone who has exactly zero connection to the case? cmon.

Hardiman is a better suspect than Charles Allen Lechmere.

* One of the murders took place in the back yard of Hardiman's mother's home - that's much closer than Dutfield's yard was to the house of Lechmere's mother.
* Hardiman's recently dead daughter and wife dying of syphilis could have given him a motive to hate prostitutes. There is no hint of a motive in Lechmere's case.
* Hardiman doesn't have an alibi for any of the killings (that I know of). Chapman was killed after Lechmere started work. Killing Stride and Eddowes would have required Lechmere stay up at least 23 hours straight or get up 3 hours early on his only day off.
* Hardiman died only a few years after the Ripper stopped. Lechmere lived for three decades after the killings stopped.

That doesn't mean that Hardiman was the Ripper. Odds are he was just an average guy with an above average amount of tragedy in his life. But he's a better suspect than Charles Allen Lechmere.

And more likely than both is George Capel Scudamore Lechmere, a semi-employed alcoholic barber who tried to slit his estranged wife's neck, did time, and appears to have died a few years after the killings stopped.

[Fiver]

Small thing Fiver, but I just checked to see that it does give his first name too. In the interview part, that is, not in the part where it's said that Mr. Paul repeated his story.

Cheers,
Frank

Thank you for catching what I missed. So Robert Paul's full name was definitely known by Sunday, possibly earlier.

[rjpalmer]

Hardiman is a better suspect than Charles Allen Lechmere.

What about Patrick Mulshaw?

Christer Holmgren and Gary Barnett make great hay out of Cross's connections to St. George in the East, but Cross wasn't still living there in the Autumn of 1888. His relatives were, but not him. How many bystanders or witness in the case also have connections to that area? Do we even know?

By contrast--Mulshaw--who was also alone in the immediate area of the murder that morning WAS still living in SGE at the time and had connections to the area around Dufield's Yard. How many serial killers have been security guards or former security guards? Quite a number of them--they get to work alone at night, and they enjoy the vicarious status of being seen as an authority figure.

Mulshaw also kicked the bucket a couple of years later, which would explain the cessation of the crimes, unlike the bearded patriarch of the Crossmeres who lived a long and quiet life.

I'm not suggesting Mulshaw was the killer--I'm suggesting that Lechmere only looks impressive (or supposedly impressive) when seen in isolation. There are other characters in our 'cast of thousands' that have similar or even more dastardly connections to the murder locations. What about Alfred Crow? He was on the landing in George Yard when Martha Tabram must have been there and--unlike Cross--reported nothing to the police. His job kept him out on the streets of East London at the time the murders occurred...unlike Cross. He once lived closer to Dutfield's Yard than Cross ever lived. It seems more psychologically realistic that a murderer would strike after his day's work than before it, and we see this pattern in Berkowitz, etc.

I've found a neighbor of Cross's that used no less than three different names and had connections to Goulston Street. It doesn't make him a killer.

In short, the 'evidence' of Cross's guilt is impressive to the commentators on YouTube only because they don't realize how common these 'coincidences' really were. The 'evidence' against Lechmere has all the appearance of one of those wrongful conviction cases we see when two or three overzealous, small-town cops fit up a bystander because they don't have any legitimate idea of who the murderer really was.