Charles Lechmere: Prototypical Life of a Serial Killer

[Elamarna]

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

We seem to agree on much Jeff.
There are minor differences in timings

You use 3.2 mph, I use selection, but for a base line for the carmen use 3.5( slightly above average , but we have many who are running late for work, so I assume they would walk slightly faster than average)

The major difference is that you have Thain running down Bucks Row, I simply have him walking fast.
And you have him running to Lewellyn, whereas I have him walking, he can see Polly is clearly dead, it's not an emergency, but it is important.
We are close on how long it would take Mizen to get the Ambulance.

While the weight of evidence clearly says Mizen spoke of flowing blood after he returned with said ambulance, it really matters not.

Given the wounds to the neck of Polly, there is NO way that even if his comment was before he went, he could see blood flowing under pressure.
Blood flow would stop in under 4 minutes from the time of cutting, for the neck wounds alone.

Given he must arrive several minutes after Neil, (even Christer suggests 3 I believe, ) there is no way he could see bleeding under pressure.

Therefore it seems clear that Mizen, and probably Neil only saw passive bleeding, that is not under pressure.

Given that the duration of such is impossible to estimate.
It cannot be used to determine when the attack took place.
Only if bleeding had been observed under pressure, would a rough estimate of TOD be possible.

Overall I think it's very interesting how without reading my work, we arrive at very similar conclusions .

Keep up the good work Jeff.

Steve

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Christer,

Oozing, of course, means dribbling very slowly, trickling gently, if you wish. This is in keeping with a slight disturbance of the body shortly before, and not like real bleeding, which would be much faster and more prolific. I have always assumed that this is why the word "oozing" was specifically chosen by experienced people. You must have noticed that the doctor, the police and the Coroner showed no surprise or suspicion at this evidence, so, unlike you, neither do I.

The amount of time between Paul and Lechmere leaving Nichols and PC Neil arriving is an unknown but fairly short interval. You suggest 6 minutes, but I see no reason why I should accept that - it is a figure picked out of the air that suits you. I am not aware of Neil describing the street as "uncannily silent", but I do have a note of him saying that "he didn't notice anyone about." It was very dark, so he wouldn't have seen anyone unless they were pretty close. I would imagine that the sound of hob-nailed boots would have been a fairly routine early morning sound as working men made their way to and from work.

[Doctored Whatsit]

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?

Not absolutely impossible, I suppose, but unlikely, I think. Paul says quite a bit about her already being cold.

[Fiver]

We all are free to make our own rules about how we participate on the forum.

You are free to respond to whoever you wish to, just like everyone else on this forum.

But that's a right you are refusing to accept for anyone but yourself.

* You are demanding certain posters answer certain of your posts, whether they want to or not.
* You are demanding that all other posters don't answer your posts, even if they want to.

Your double standard and entitled attitude are noted.

Just like you probably noted that nobody is agreeing to your arbitrary demands. You are not a mod. You have no right to tell other posters what to do.

[Fiver]

The problem is, we already know the information, and then are trying to back-calculate the probability. That isn't how it is done. Once you know there is the information the probability of that information is 100% You can't go back and work out a meaningful probability after the fact. See, let's say the probability of any particular interesting titbit is 1 in 1,000. And you find Joe Bloggs has 3 interesting points. Wow! That's like 1 in 1,000,000! Must not be coincidence, right?

This story may be apocryphal. I've heard that years ago a prosecutor in California claimed that even though no witness was certain the defendant was the criminal they saw, the eyewitness descriptions only matched 1 person in 1 million. The defense pointed out that there were 30 million people in California, so convicting this person would be a 29 to 1 chance of convicting an innocent man.

[JeffHamm]

We seem to agree on much Jeff.
There are minor differences in timings

You use 3.2 mph, I use selection, but for a base line for the carmen use 3.5( slightly above average , but we have many who are running late for work, so I assume they would walk slightly faster than average)

The major difference is that you have Thain running down Bucks Row, I simply have him walking fast.
And you have him running to Lewellyn, whereas I have him walking, he can see Polly is clearly dead, it's not an emergency, but it is important.
We are close on how long it would take Mizen to get the Ambulance.

While the weight of evidence clearly says Mizen spoke of flowing blood after he returned with said ambulance, it really matters not.

Given the wounds to the neck of Polly, there is NO way that even if his comment was before he went, he could see blood flowing under pressure.
Blood flow would stop in under 4 minutes from the time of cutting, for the neck wounds alone.

Given he must arrive several minutes after Neil, (even Christer suggests 3 I believe, ) there is no way he could see bleeding under pressure.

Therefore it seems clear that Mizen, and probably Neil only saw passive bleeding, that is not under pressure.

Given that the duration of such is impossible to estimate.
It cannot be used to determine when the attack took place.
Only if bleeding had been observed under pressure, would a rough estimate of TOD be possible.

Overall I think it's very interesting how without reading my work, we arrive at very similar conclusions .

Keep up the good work Jeff.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Yah, I was considering doing the above using a number of different assumptions about walking speeds and so forth, but simply chose one set in the end to illustrate the idea. I agree that there is an argument that Cross/Lechmere and Paul may walk slightly faster than average, but average walking speed gets them both to work on time (just), so I've often stuck with it for simplicity. But really, one probably wants to check a range of reasonable values.

I've played around with PC Thain taking different routes to and from Dr. L's as well, and in the end, the overall picture doesn't really change, so it's not dependent upon the specific choices. The fact you come to the same idea when making different choices demonstrates that the overall story is robust against variation in the choices we have to make, which is always a good thing.

Nice to see independent research converge on the same result.

- Jeff

[Fiver]

Then again, there are plenty of others who have already solved the case, so I suppose that's why I do not feel compelled to solve it yet again.

That's probably why you consistently have some of the best posts - you aren't in love with a certain solution, so you aren't ignoring inconvenient facts or doing mental gymnastics to force facts into matching a theory.

[Fiver]

I doubt that the bleeding evidence can tell us the time of the attack with that kind of precision.

It can't - Fishy's own experts said there was little or no data on bleed out times and disagreed significantly in their guesses.

[Fiver]

Sourcing this claim of yours as ”Casebook.org” without naming who you are supposedly quoting and what was supposedly said out on Casebook and when it was said, and then choosing it over what must be regarded as an official source, namely Cutting Point, is a very dubious thing to do.

The only dubious thing is you proclaiming your own work as an official source. Just how big is your ego?

I think it must rest on you as the author of Inside Bucks Row to try and be as fair as possible when describing your counterparts views of the case.

He is under no obligation to even mention your fringe views in his own work. Badgering him doesn't make you right.

[Fiver]

TIn a way, McKenzies case helps to strengthen the case for Lechmere being innocent because it demonstrates that it CAN take longer to bleed out than would be expected.

That said, the 'average' time would be anywhere between 2 to 8 minutes.

How are you determining average time to bleed out?

[Fiver]

Most of your "points" have been refuted multiple times.

There is a slew of attempts to normalize odd behaviors on Lech's part- things most wouldn't do:

- most would attend to the fallen woman first, before addressing Paul

So by "most" we are excluding Albert Crow, Robert Paul, John Davis, Louis Deimshutz, PC Watkins, and Thomas Bowyer? Does that mean they were all the Ripper?

- most would use the name that appears on their marriage certificate at the inquest

The man who testified as Joseph Lawende was listed as Joseph Lavender on his marriage certificate. Does that mean he was the Ripper?

- most would come to the inquest dressed in their best clothing - as if attending church (trying to avoid the circus with that?)

The facts disprove your opinion. Just read any of the inquests.

- most would have the incident passed down among the family lore

Can you tell us any major events of your great great grandfather's life? Can you even tell us his name? If I was able to find a fact about your great great grandfather that you didn't know, would it prove your great great grandfather was trying to deceive you?

- most, if innocent, would be clear and precise when addressing a police officer about discovering the body:

Robert Paul thought that Charles Lechmere was clear and precise enough. It appears Inspector Abberline did as well.

"you are wanted (by the police)" would not be the unclear language (& i'm being charitable here) most would use.

You selectively quoting Lechmere doesn't mean he was unclear. Lechmere also said "There is a woman in Bucks Row on the broad of her back. She looks to me to be either dead or drunk; but for my part I think she is dead." Lechmere's version was accepted by Robert Paul, the police, and the coroner.

[JeffHamm]

That's probably why you consistently have some of the best posts - you aren't in love with a certain solution, so you aren't ignoring inconvenient facts or doing mental gymnastics to force facts into matching a theory.

Stop, I'll blush! ha ha Still, I've read excellent posts and points from everyone, and we've all made our blunders (I know I have made some doozies). For me, it's the quest for knowledge that I find most interesting, and to use what we know, even if it is vague and incomplete, to try and complete parts of the puzzle. And while we can never positively solve or know what exists in all the voids of our knowledge, I think we sometimes can, by looking at the edges, peer at least a little into the unknown. My work involves research, writing papers, and so forth, and you learn pretty quick that knowledge really only comes to those who recognize they still need to seek and explore in order to learn the answer. But once you think you know it, you forever shut your eyes and see no more.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

So who is the likelier to have been guilty?

Lechmere or a guy who was out purely to find a victim and who wasn’t due at work in 15/20 minutes?
Lechmere or a guy who disappears into the night to evade capture?
Lechmere or a guy who wasn’t at work at the time of the Chapman murder?

[Herlock Sholmes]

On the ‘oozing’ question.

What about the murder of Lydia Green (5th February 1887) discovered by David Orsam? She was undoubtedly killed at around 7.15 (time confirmed in five ways) and when Dr. Davies examined the body at 7.45 he said: “In examination I found a depressed wound on the forehead over the left eye, from which blood was oozing, and there was a quantity of dried blood around the wound.”

This wasn’t just a non-medically trained Constable using the word ‘oozing,’ this was from a Doctor who said that the body was ‘oozing blood’ a full 30 minutes after death!

[Doctored Whatsit]

Stop, I'll blush! ha ha Still, I've read excellent posts and points from everyone, and we've all made our blunders (I know I have made some doozies). For me, it's the quest for knowledge that I find most interesting, and to use what we know, even if it is vague and incomplete, to try and complete parts of the puzzle. And while we can never positively solve or know what exists in all the voids of our knowledge, I think we sometimes can, by looking at the edges, peer at least a little into the unknown. My work involves research, writing papers, and so forth, and you learn pretty quick that knowledge really only comes to those who recognize they still need to seek and explore in order to learn the answer. But once you think you know it, you forever shut your eyes and see no more.

- Jeff

Thank you Jeff - I think everyone should read and absorb this little gem of observation.