Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[Fisherman]

Can't let this go without clarifying.

Are you saying that the Suggestion by Paul Begg in the facts , one that was commonly held at the time, it's in several other publications, was a "Crackpot" suggestion?

Rest assured the next update will mention your 6 minutes, and how it argues against Neil seeing active bleeding.

I welcome adding the real take of the Lechmere theory to your book, of course, but as far as I'm concerned, the damage is done. And will you update the other three matters I mentioned? How you tell your readers that the theory suggests that Lechmere must have been the killer on account of how there is not time for another perp? How you tell your readers that the theory proposes that there was under pressure bleeding as Neil arrived? How you tell your readers that the theory claims that we can count backwards and find the exact time when Nichols was cut?

Or are you going to leave them in your book, as somehow representing the Lechmere theory?

My advice to you would be to remove any example where you mention weird suggestions made by uninitiated people as being somehow representative of the theory and focus on the real theory only. If you cannot bring yourself to do that, then please TELL you readers how you have chosen to quote sheer silliness as being part of the theory!

I don't know why you mention Paul Begg, and I hope it is not because you want to portray me as claiming that Paul Begg is a crackpot. He is effectively not. But if he has suggested that Neil arrived two minutes after Lechmere left, then I would stretch as far as to say that I believe that he is wrong.

I used the word "crackpot" because I genuinely sensed that there is a risk that your book contains examples I have not yet seen (I have only read the fewest of chapters so far) of you quoting people who do have crackpot takes on things, and passing them off as being somehow representative for the Lechmere theory.

I donīt think we are going to get any further with this matter. It is what it is, and it is not good. Hitting it back and forth with a bat won't add anything more to the discussion. I will try and find the time to read more parts of your book in days to come. If I find the same kind of stuff there, I may well return to the discussion. Hopefully, I will instead find better things and a fairer representation of what the Lechmere theory suggests. We will see. I have other things on my agenda ahead.

[Fisherman]

"This is a public forum. You do not make the rules. Everyone has a right to respond to your posts. If you are afraid of dealing with every objection to your theories, then you should stay home"

We all are free to make our own rules about how we participate on the forum. If I choose to exchange with posters one at the time, I am perfectly free to do so. I am not in any way afraid of commenting on any question about my theory. That should be clear from how I say that every poster who wants to, will get his or her chance to ask any questions they want of me - when their time comes.
That is not who somebody who is afraid debates - it is how somebody who is intent on not getting swarmed and left unable to answer more than a fraction of the posts handles debating out here.

You are going to have to bear with me, because that is the only way you are going to be able to get answers to your questions.

Just as I am free to debate according to my own wishes, you are free to further clot the thread with accusations and less than civil posts. We all make our own calls and we all get to live with them.

Having clarified this, I will not debate further with you until I choose to do so. Thank you for offering me the possibility to show how this is going to work!

[The Baron]

Elamarna, don't forget to mention the crackpot and silly sugesstion of those who claim to be the originators of the Lechmere theory in its recent shape, that Lechmere may have convinced Paul to lie to Mizen so they can both go to work, and Lechmere avoid being searched or questioned.



The Baron

[Fiver]

The killer would have probably made it out; but it wasn't risk free. Not just constables (they were around), but more prostitutes, Johns, vagrants - you don't know who you will encounter fleeing, when going around a corner.

Yes, he probably would have gotten away just fleeing .... no argument there.

No one has claimed that fleeing would be risk free. But it would have been a lot safer than talking to Robert Paul and PC Mizen with blood on your hands, blood on your clothes, and a bloody knife knife in your pocket.

As for the blood, he was a carman - not an IBM executive, and it was dark. A spot or two of blood ....phfft!
That is blood from handling animal meat.

Pickfords was a general goods service. Lechmere was not a meat cart driver. Lechmere was not a butcher. Lechmere was not a slaughterman.

And even a slaughterman wouldn't have an explanation for having fresh wet blood on his hands and clothes before he got to work, let alone why there was a bloody knife in his pocket.

You are missing one option, the first person to find the body stays behind and Paul goes ahead and fetches help.
The idea that coming 10 - 15 minutes late to work, after helping the police with a distressed woman will get a long time employee in trouble with his employer is absurd. Not now, not then.

Robert Paul disagrees with you - he also left the body behind so he wouldn't be late for work.

Provided that he hadn't a bloody knife in a coat pocket, and Paul was a reliable witness to the just arriving there together story.

Why wouldn't the Ripper have a bloody knife in his pocket? And fresh blood on his hands and clothes?

If Lechmere was the killer he would have no idea if Robert Paul had seen him standing by the body, moving to the middle of the street, turning his back, and only pretending to hear Paul at that point. To a guilty man, Paul's shying away would be an indication that Paul is afraid because he knows too much.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Christer,

Firstly, I assume that you accept that Paul and Lechmere did almost certainly raise Nichols hands, and therefore could very likely have started some blood to ooze from the wound. The time between Paul and Lechmere leaving and PC Neil arriving is quite uncertain. The street was declared to be very dark, so they would have been out of sight in seconds. They were probably hurrying, as they needed to find a policeman, and get to work on time. Neil could have arrived quite shortly after the pair left. I thought Mizen had mentioned seeing blood oozing in some newspaper reports, and my reference to Neil moving Nichols' hands was in respect of that.

[Elamarna]

I don't know why you mention Paul Begg, and I hope it is not because you want to portray me as claiming that Paul Begg is a crackpot. He is effectively not. But if he has suggested that Neil arrived two minutes after Lechmere left, then I would stretch as far as to say that I believe that he is wrong.

Clearly you don't read replies fully, I mention PAUL in post 846.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I wonder if in any future version of Cutting Point it’s author might ‘remember’ not to give readers the entirely false impression that Lechmere had said that he’d left the house at 3.30. While the subject of an honest approach is being ‘discussed.’ I also wonder if there was going to be a follow-up documentary where Scobie is actually informed of this too?

[Fisherman]

Hi Christer,

Firstly, I assume that you accept that Paul and Lechmere did almost certainly raise Nichols hands, and therefore could very likely have started some blood to ooze from the wound. The time between Paul and Lechmere leaving and PC Neil arriving is quite uncertain. The street was declared to be very dark, so they would have been out of sight in seconds. They were probably hurrying, as they needed to find a policeman, and get to work on time. Neil could have arrived quite shortly after the pair left. I thought Mizen had mentioned seeing blood oozing in some newspaper reports, and my reference to Neil moving Nichols' hands was in respect of that.

As you will have seen, it is evident that John Neil did not lift any of Polly Nicholsī arms - at least not until after he had seen blood running from the wound in her neck. And I take it you will therefore accept that the blood he noted coming from the neck wound was not caused by him lifting her arm.

When it comes to Lechmere and Paul, we know that they examined the body, but I am anything but certain that they lifted her arm/s. Contrary to Neil, they did not feel up towards the joints, they only felt the hand/s and face. And I tend to think that anybody who are not dealing with potentially dead people in a professional capacity (such as PCs, for example) are very much more unwilling to get physical with potential corpses. Most people would feel spooked in a situation like the one at hand (although I don't think Lechmere was, of course, and for obvious reasons), and so my take on things is that they - as Sugden would perhaps have worded it - gingerly touched her hand/s and face without grabbing hold of her in any way.

Regardless of this, which is going to be hard to prove either way, we can now see that there was blood running from the wound in Pollys neck as Neil stooped down and turned his light on her. And Neil will have been in place around six minutes after the carmen. The prevailing darkness would not have obscured the sounds of four hobnailed feet tottering away in a haste towards the west. It also applies that Neil entered Bucks Row from Thomas Street, and that would have left a stretch of some sixty yards only of the Bucks Row stretch the carmen had to cover. It must therefore be accepted that the carmen must have not only turned the corner but also walked some way towards Mizen - or perhaps all of the way - before Neil turned into Bucks Row. Neil said that the night was an uncannily silent one or something along those lines, and four hobnailed feet hurrying along do not produce an uncannily silent street. Neil and the carmen were effectively not in Bucks Row simultaneously. It is impossible.

What we have is a situation where the carmen must first have covered the stretch up to Thomas Street. They then must have proceeded past the Thomas Street inlet to Bucks Row, turned the Bakers Row corner and walked away towards Mizen, all of this before Neil could embark on his one and a half minute trek down from Thomas Street to the murder site. And together, it would take considerable time. I don't think that the suggestion that Lechmere and Paul lifted the arms of Nichols, thereby setting into motion a bleeding from Nicholsī neck that lasted for a full six minutes before Neil arrived, has any real merit. Jason Payne James and Ingemar Thiblin both thought that six minutes would be on the far side of a good guess about how long the whole bleeding process would likely take!

The picture is, I would suggest, a very simple one. Lechmere cut Nichols at around 3.44 - 3.45, and when Neil arrived at circa 3.51, she was still bleeding. The blood then went on to fill up the structure in the pavement where it pooled, making it run over the brim so that Mizen observed how a stream towards the gutter had formed when he arrived. There is nothing at all illogical with that scenario, and it is contained within the 1-9 minute bleeding time that Thiblin thought reasonably plausible. 10-15 minutes, however, he considered less plausible, although not impossible as such.

At any rate, I am glad that we have established that whatever lifting of the arm Neil did - or did not - do, must have come AFTER him observing blood running from the neck of Polly Nichols.

As for the old "oozing" debate, I found that Richard Jones agreed with me that "ooze" may well depict a relatively rich flow of blood, plus we also have Neil saying that the blood was "running":

"The Coroner: Did you notice any blood where she was found?

Witness: There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. It was running from the wound in her neck."

As you said in your former post, when you still promoted the idea that Neil lifted the arm of Nichols: It is really not very complicated.

[Fisherman]

Clearly you don't read replies fully, I mention PAUL in post 846.

I read it and I replied to it, Steve. And I do not think that Paul Begg is a crackpot, whereas I do think that I am entitled to think that he was wrong in his estimation. As a matter of fact, we both know that he must have been if he suggested that seconds only passed between Lechmeres leaving the spot and Neils arriving at it. That does not take away from how we are both standing on the shoulders of a giant when we look at Paul Beggs contributions to ripperology.

What this matter points to, is instead how much progress has been made since Paul Beggs suggestion and how much more we know about the matter now than we did a decade ago. The Nichols murder was for the longest the most anonymous one in the whole series, when it comes to public interest. That has changed to the exact opposite in the last decade, and that owes to a certain carman ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

‘The picture is, I would suggest, a very simple one..”

Indeed.

The killer killed Nichols - the transparently innocent Lechmere found the body - Paul arrived seconds later - Neil arrived a minute or two later - then Mizen arrived.

Simples.

No need for invention, fantasy, manipulation, omission or the re-writing of the English language. And the killer was…..someone other than Charles Lechmere (who is the victim of an agenda by those seeking to create a mixture of cottage industry or religion around him.)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Let’s get real shall we?

Charles Lechmere has just stopped off on his way to work to murder and mutilate a prostitute leaving himself around 10 minutes to get to work on time. He’s not in a square or a backyard or in someone’s room, he’s on a straight road with unobstructed views in both directions and solely reliant on shadows and poor lighting for his own safety. He’s on high alert; he doesn’t want to be caught. He wants to kill more. He hears every distant door bang or voice or unexplained noise. As he’s in the process he hears footsteps. What might his thinking be under those stressful circumstances?

I’d say that his very first though would be “policeman!” Now the argument against this being the case is that Robert Paul would undoubtedly have been walking quicker than a Constable’s regulation tread. Yes he would have but I’m talking about his very first thought; his first and constant fear….a policeman arriving. How long would it have taken him, in that position, under those circumstances to have thought “hold on, a Constable wouldn’t be walking that quickly would he?” Perhaps he was a quick thinker? Not impossible but Lechmere couldn’t have been certain about what the guy could or couldn’t see from where he was, so I suggest that a bit of paranoia would set in. Had a Constable seen him kneeling suspiciously and increased his speed? Perhaps he’d been called and was walking quickly because of that? James Bond or Sherlock Holmes might have worked this all out in such a short time but would most people? A man probably committing his first murder at such an exposed spot?

Ok, so let’s imagine that Lechmere has done these lightning calculations and decided that it probably wasn’t a Constable. Then of course he’d have seen the man (or possibly just his silhouette) and seen that it wasn’t a Constable, but now he was faced with a ‘what to do next.’ The first instinct is always to flee. It’s the most obvious choice by an absolute mile so what would caused him to have thought “hmm, maybe I’ll stick around?” What doubt could he possibly have had about fleeing? He said that Paul was around 40 yards away but perhaps it was a bit more than that? Could it have been less so that he was more or less caught in the act? At that location? I’d say no chance unless he was deaf. So 40 yards or maybe a little more. It’s a fair distance and quite a head start. By the time that Paul arrived and found the body (if he’d seen it) Lech is 50, 60, 70 yards away in the dark. What risks? Paul is hardly likely to have chased after a man with a knife. Lechmere might possibly have seen a Constable but he would probably have had enough time to dodge him by changing direction. Failing that what particular attention would a Constable have taken of a random guy walking to work head down in the dark.

Now compare the obvious attraction of fleeing to staying. There are no maybe’s here. This option definitely would involve a Constable with all of the risks. Maybe he had blood on him (how could he have been sure in the dark….he could have kneeled in some, maybe a search….what about the knife? Maybe Paul had seen him move from the body to the middle of the road? Lech would have been caught out in a lie at a murder scene. How could he have known that Paul wasn’t the have-a-go-hero type who would accuse him of being the woman’s attacker? How is it even conceivable that Lechmere would have hung around with all of these risks (so obvious that a child would have seen them) because he felt that, on the spot, he could come up with a plan to avoid all of them? How?

Why is it even considered that this guy would have waited for Paul? Although I’ve asked dozens of times not one single example of this type behaviour has ever been provided from the history of serial murder. Not one. Given the chance, even a slim one (and Lechmere’s wasn’t slim it was obvious….more than that, it was the only choice) killers flee. They do whatever’s best to avoid detection. They don’t hang around playing games.

We can’t exonerate Lechmere of murder (like most suspects) but Lechmere’s staying put is as close as it gets to doing just that. It was very clearly the action of a completely innocent man.

[The Rookie Detective]

May I throw a spanner in the works by asking...

How long was Nichols body left alone between Lechmere and Paul leaving, to PC Neil entering Bucks Row?

Could the following scenario have occurred?...

The killer attacks Nichols and strangles her, she loses consciousness and he lowers her to the floor... but just as he's about to cut her, he hears Lechmere approaching and quickly hides in the shadows.

He watches on as Lechmere stops and looks over at her...and then Paul arrives... the pair go over to the body and notice NO cuts of bleeding....they assume she's drunk and because she's just laying there with no obvious signs of having received any injuries, Paul convinces Lechmere she's drunk and they head off to work and then tell Mizen...

But what if when Lechmere and Paul saw Nichols...she had not been cut?...

And could there be a scenario whereby Paul and Lechmere leave and the killer steps from the shadows to inflict her neck and abdominal injuries AFTER the two men had already left?

In othe words, what if she was strangled and attacked at 3.30am but then didn't receive the cuts to her neck and abdomen until AFTER Lechmere and Paul left?

The killer only needed a minute to cut her throat as she lay there and inflict abdominal injuries before leaving Bucks Row in time BEFORE PC Neil entered Bucks Row.


Would 2 separate attacks on Nichols account for the bleed out conundrum?

Was there time for JTR to go BACK to Nichols to cut her as she lay there unconscious from being strangled previously?


Thoughts please?

[JeffHamm]

May I throw a spanner in the works by asking...

How long was Nichols body left alone between Lechmere and Paul leaving, to PC Neil entering Bucks Row?

Could the following scenario have occurred?...

The killer attacks Nichols and strangles her, she loses consciousness and he lowers her to the floor... but just as he's about to cut her, he hears Lechmere approaching and quickly hides in the shadows.

He watches on as Lechmere stops and looks over at her...and then Paul arrives... the pair go over to the body and notice NO cuts of bleeding....they assume she's drunk and because she's just laying there with no obvious signs of having received any injuries, Paul convinces Lechmere she's drunk and they head off to work and then tell Mizen...

But what if when Lechmere and Paul saw Nichols...she had not been cut?...

And could there be a scenario whereby Paul and Lechmere leave and the killer steps from the shadows to inflict her neck and abdominal injuries AFTER the two men had already left?

In othe words, what if she was strangled and attacked at 3.30am but then didn't receive the cuts to her neck and abdomen until AFTER Lechmere and Paul left?

The killer only needed a minute to cut her throat as she lay there and inflict abdominal injuries before leaving Bucks Row in time BEFORE PC Neil entered Bucks Row.


Would 2 separate attacks on Nichols account for the bleed out conundrum?

Was there time for JTR to go BACK to Nichols to cut her as she lay there unconscious from being strangled previously?


Thoughts please?

It's been suggested before as an idea, but it is difficult to figure out where JtR is supposed to be hiding while Cross/Lechmere and Paul are doing their thing. If he's hiding nearby, he would probably overhear them talking about going to find the police, so it seems a bit of a stretch for him to decide to go back, cut her throat and start mutilating her at that point.

When one reads their testimony, it really doesn't look like they did much more than walk over to the body, discuss what to do (i.e. should we sit her up? No, let's just get the cops. type thing), touch her hand/arm (maybe giving it a shake, like "are you ok/awake" sort of thing) and Paul pulls down her clothes before the leave for work. That whole "event" might only last about 10-15 seconds, it's not like they started CPR or anything, or did any kind of detailed inspection of her, so not spotting the blood or her injuries, given it was dark as well, could be very easily understood. Some aspects that they talk about, like "maybe she was dead", might arise during any discussion they might have as they walk away looking for a PC because she didn't stir or respond at all to their presence. As a result, when they then find PC Mizen, a half-hearted "she might be dead" gets mentioned, which doesn't come across as being said with any conviction, so PC Mizen doesn't think it's anything really. Later, when they hear she was actually dead, the fact they discussed it makes them think "hey, we had it right" and that conversation gets turned into something they now talk about as if they were truly serious about her being dead (or believed it more strongly than they really did at the time), rather than it being something that at the time they didn't really believe but were, perhaps, a bit off put due to how completely comatose she appeared to be.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi all,

From the testimony, we have Cross/Lechmere and Paul leave the crime scene, and walk off where they find PC Mizen. The distance is around 921 feet, and walking at an average speed (3.2 mph), that means to walk that distance would require them roughly 3m 16 s. They chat with PC Mizen for what appears to be a relatively short time, say 30 seconds. You can increase or decrease this as suits your fancy. PC Mizen then has to get to the crime scene, clearly he wasn't in a hurry, so again, it would take him roughly 3m 16s as well. So the total amount of time that passes from Cross/Lechmere and Paul leaving the scene until PC Mizen arrives at the scene is about 7 minutes (longer if you increase the chat with the carmen; or add time if you believe he continued to knock up a few people before moving on). Either way, PC Mizen records the time of his interaction with the carmen as being 3:45, which is also the time PC Neil records as finding the body.

Going with the above, that would suggest PC Neil finds the body roughly 3m 46 seconds before PC Mizen's arrival, and when PC Mizen arrives, there is only PC Neil there (who sends him off to get the ambulance).

In the interval between the body discovery and PC Mizen's arrival at around 1:48:46 type thing, we know that PC Neil summons PC Thain from the far end of Buck's Row. We can presume PC Thain runs that length, because he's being summoned by a fellow officer, which indicates some sort of emergency. An average running speed is around 6.1 mph, and the distance from the end of Buck's Row to the crime scene is around 420 feet, so PC Thain would take about 46 seconds to get there. He is then sent to fetch Dr. Llewellyn, and would run for that too, so another 46 seconds to run back up Buck's Row (where he turns right and heads down to Whitechappel to wake up the doctor, etc). That's about 1 m 30s of time for PC Thain to get there and leave and be out of sight, add a bit if you think PC Thain and PC Neil had a bit of a tongue wag before PC Thain heads off.

What the above indicates, is that given the distances involved, and just using typical (average) walking and running speeds, it is clear that the testimony holds together; PC Thain comes and goes and then PC Mizen arrives without PC Thain being present, which all point to the police being reliable with regards to their stated times. Given PC Mizen was knocking people up, and that it is the job of the police to be aware of the time while on their beat, that is hardly surprising.

While I don't put any stock in the bleeding testimony as a time stamp for the murder (still bleeding doesn't mean "blood coming out under pressure, and spurting", it just means blood is flowing - and since the blood will flow along the ground, that will continue to cause a flow from the wound until clotting occurs sufficiently to stop the flow. For a wound as large as Nichols, I suspect that is going to require some time, hence I have no problem with the idea that she could continue to "bleed", or maybe better phrased as have "blood flowing from the wound" for 20 minutes or more, as per McKenzie).

When PC Mizen goes to fetch the ambulance, the station is a fair distance, and at a walk it would take him 11 to 12 minutes to get there, and something similar to bring it back. He might go faster than a typical walk going there, but of course, coming back with the ambulance will be slower, so I'm just offsetting those to get some rough estimates of time here. Basically, PC Mizen, after leaving the scene, probably gets back to it with the ambulance around 20-25 minutes later (presuming he can just grab it at the station, maybe add a minute or two there if you wish). So we would expect him to get back with ambulance about 20 - 25 minutes after roughly 1:49, so in the vicinity of 4:10 and 4:15.

PC Thain's testimony places PC Mizen arriving with the ambulance after he and Dr. Llewelly arrive at the scene, which is around 4:00 am, and again, which also fits in well with the measured distances and estimated times for the journeys involved.

So, if PC Mizen's descriptions of the blood flow were made after his return with the ambulance, then from the time of PC Neil's discovery until PC Mizen returns, we're looking at something like 20-25 minutes. And we know McKenzie was observed to have blood flow for 20 or so minutes. We don't know the time of either murder per se, but given Polly's throat was cut more broadly than Alice's, it might take clot longer to build up sufficiently to stop the blood flow. Basically, the blood flow statements, as far as I can see, aren't very helpful in narrowing down the time of the murder. Generally, medical evidence doesn't really narrow things down to the order of minutes, it roughly places the death in a fairly broad time window.

It is the job of the investigators to use the information they gather to fine tune that.

- Jeff

[Elamarna]

May I throw a spanner in the works by asking...

How long was Nichols body left alone between Lechmere and Paul leaving, to PC Neil entering Bucks Row?

Could the following scenario have occurred?...

The killer attacks Nichols and strangles her, she loses consciousness and he lowers her to the floor... but just as he's about to cut her, he hears Lechmere approaching and quickly hides in the shadows.

He watches on as Lechmere stops and looks over at her...and then Paul arrives... the pair go over to the body and notice NO cuts of bleeding....they assume she's drunk and because she's just laying there with no obvious signs of having received any injuries, Paul convinces Lechmere she's drunk and they head off to work and then tell Mizen...

But what if when Lechmere and Paul saw Nichols...she had not been cut?...

And could there be a scenario whereby Paul and Lechmere leave and the killer steps from the shadows to inflict her neck and abdominal injuries AFTER the two men had already left?

In othe words, what if she was strangled and attacked at 3.30am but then didn't receive the cuts to her neck and abdomen until AFTER Lechmere and Paul left?

The killer only needed a minute to cut her throat as she lay there and inflict abdominal injuries before leaving Bucks Row in time BEFORE PC Neil entered Bucks Row.


Would 2 separate attacks on Nichols account for the bleed out conundrum?

Was there time for JTR to go BACK to Nichols to cut her as she lay there unconscious from being strangled previously?


Thoughts please?

It's impossible to be pricise about how long after the carmen leave that Neil arrived.

There are several variables , the exact beat, and the speed he walked at.

We have to assess where he would be, when Lechmere and Paul pass along BUCKS ROW, and they do not see or hear him, or he them

In Inside Bucks Row, there are two chapters devoted to the beat of Neil, showing the various possible routes he may have used and how long walking each would take.

We end up with a range of just on two minutes up to just over 5 minutes for Neil to arrive after the carmen depart.

What bleed out conundrum RD?


As for your Suggestion, it's certain possible, but I think unlikely, as Jeff asks, where would the killer hide?

Steve