Lechmere-Cross bye bye

[caz]

...it equally applies that Nichols was found dead by a PC two or three minutes after Lechmere left her!

All we can di is to look at the factualitites, and when we do, we find that Lechmere is by far the better candidate.

All we can do is look at the facts, and when we do, we find that Lechmere and Paul left her, and Lechmere came forward to claim he was the original finder.

He didn't need to do that, nor to involve himself any further. Nobody knew him from Adam. The only sensible reason for attending the inquest is that he thought he should do his duty (even if the other carman was reluctant) and set the record straight. There was nothing to be gained if he was the killer, and a hell of a lot to lose, particularly if he didn't want his real name and address coming out publicly because he knew he was likely to kill again sooner rather than later.

The whole idea just gets more fanciful the more deeply it is explored.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

If Nichols had been killed by somebody who put blue palm prints all over the place, i would want to know if my suspect had sticky, blue palms. If there was blue palm prints on his home walls, I would reason that such a thing seemed to confirm that he was the blue palm guy who set off prints in Bucks Row.

There is nothing circular about that.

Congratulations, Fish. That would be real evidence, unless the suspect could give a plausible alternative explanation for the blue palm prints.

The trouble is, this observation sticks out like a very sticky, very sore blue thumb from everything else you claimed was not in any way circular.

I'm afraid you can argue until you are sticky and blue in the face that the ripper was most probably a psychopath, but until you can show that Lechmere was either a probable psychopath independently of whether he was the killer or not, or probably the killer independently of whether he was a psychopath or not, you still have two complete unknowns which rely on the truth of one to make your case for the other.

And that is about as circular as it gets in the debating world.

Love,

Caz
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[Fisherman]

caz: Ooh, ooh, let me have a go, Fish.

I dunno, Caz - whenever I do, you seem to pile a heap of already gone over issues over me. I am getting old (Father Times fault) and weary (thatīs where you come in) and less up to playing that game with every day that passes. But alright, letīs do it.

Is the answer a thousand to one?

That will not be too far off the mark.

You see, if PC Neil had misinformed the world that he had found the murdered woman, and Robert Paul (the carman - not carmen) was pooh-poohed for claiming he and another unnamed man had found her first and raised the alarm with a policeman (who turned out to be Mizen), the killer would have had to be daft as a brush to come forward and point out that they had it all wrong because he was Paul's otherwise totally anonymous, unidentifiable 'other man', who had been with the corpse before anyone else. If it wasn't broke...

There we go again - more of the same, just as I predicted...
Caz, I think that Lechmere quite possibly went to the police on the evening before the second inquest day, at a stage where the policeīs pooh-poohing Paul had not yet reached the public via the papers.

I would also go as far as to say that even if Lechmere had known about how Paul was dissed, he could not be absolutely sure that Paul would not be in a position to mention some detail that would give the police a change of heart.

In either case, it would be a question of being proactive on the carmanīs behalf.

But must we chew this over and over and over and over again...?

[Fisherman]

Hang on, so because Lechmere might've carried a knife by trade, that makes him a likelier suspect than anyone who didn't? Do I have that right, Fish?

You want to know whether it applies that a man who we know had access to the type of weapon that was used in a murder case is a better suspect then a man we dont know had this access? Is that what you are asking? Really?

It is not, Harry, as if we are speaking about anybody carrying a knife. We are speaking about two people who are established as suspects in the case of Polly Nicholsī murder.

Polly Nichols was knifed to death. And you want to know if it is of consequence or not whether either man was known to carry a knife?

[Monty]

I have met and worked with slaughterers who have been very daft - and I have met and worked with slaughterers who have been very clever.

I have had the same experience with people working in shops, blacksmiths and journalists.

I am pretty convinced that all occupations will hold people of varying intellectual gifts.

My mother and father - both long gone - always used to say that if I had nothing nice to say about a person, then I should shut up.

In Andy Griffithsī case, I have a lot of nice things to say. He was very quick on the uptake of information, analytically sharp, kept an open mind, never bought things straight off without having weighed them...

If it is cherry-picking to put faith in him, then Iīm having cherries for supper.

You have a lot of nice things to say about the policeman who endorses your suspect, but not for the one who doesn't?

I bet you do.

And for the record, I asked many moons ago what, precisely, documentation Scobie and Griffiths saw.

I'm still waiting for an answer.

Monty

[caz]

Fisherman,
So nothing could be proved.Your admission.Pleased you see it that way.
So now spell out your circumstantial evidence,and remember,in court even circumstantial evidence needs a measure of proof.
You can't use the,"Your honor,I believe Cross lied about the time he left home",Ï believe he would have had blood on his person,but it was too dark to tell"etc.

It's worse than that, Harry. Fish uses Cross's own stated time of leaving home to try and hang him. Cross apparently incriminates himself by telling the truth - more than once, if you count where he also admits he heard and saw nobody who could have left the crime scene before he got there. He did all that when he had no need to come forward in the first place.

Your theory,like all those that have gone before,relies not on proven evidence,circumstantial or otherwise,but on IF this or that circumstance e xisted,then this or that consequence would ensue.

The very definition of circular - and thus pointless - reasoning.

IF x, then y; IF y, then x - with no actual evidence to support either being true.

Love,

Caz
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[Hercule Poirot]

Hi Hercule,

I have the same problem with Fisherman's circular reasoning but I must not have explained it properly to him because he accused me of not knowing what a circular argument is.

I wish you better luck with your observations than I had.

Love,

Caz
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PS There is nothing wrong with your English.

Fisherman responded by giving me points where there was no circular reasoning on his behalf at least in the way he worded them. But there were actual points in other threads where he was doing some serious circular reasoning.

Circular reasoning is a slippery path many walk on for example by starting with a dubious premise (point A) and coming to a conclusion through speculation that given A, point B is true and since B is true one comes to a second conclusion again by speculating that C is also true proving that point A is true.

Now this an example using a 3 point relation. But it happens more often when one goes through numerous points. The problem is the way one links each point with the others. The final conclusion often turns out to be a pure coincidence and not the result of a valid analytical method. The sad thing about this approach is that the final conclusion could actually be true but must be proven otherwise even if one uses the same points.

Now let's hope Fisherman doesn't tell me again that what I've just said makes no sense to him.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

[Pcdunn]

Caz: Yes, and when I asked what does figuring in the time it took for him to find Polly and bring her back to Buck's Row does to the timing, Fisherman says we can't know how Lechmere found her, but it would only be another couple of minutes. Did Lechmere lie about when he left home or didn't he?

[caz]

By the way, the knife used to kill Nichols was not a thin, longbladed weapon. It was described as a "a strong bladed knife, moderately sharp" by Llewellyn.

But what did he know...?

Based on all the wound evidence, Prosector believes the knife used to kill the ripper victims was an amputation knife.

But what does he know?

Love,

Caz
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[Patrick S]

It's worse than that, Harry. Fish uses Cross's stated time of leaving home to try and hang him. Cross apparently incriminates himself by telling the truth - more than once, if you count where he also admits he heard and saw nobody who could have left the crime scene before he got there.



The very definition of circular - and thus pointless - reasoning.

IF x, then y; IF y, then x - with no actual evidence to support either being true.

Love,

Caz
X

I'll say this in all honesty, caz.... Christer has either become delusional or he's simply not being honest and he does't believe his 'conclusion' any more than we do.

You've made excellent points and he continues to deflect, obfuscate, and mislead. He sees Lechmere's guilt in everything. He sees confirmation of his belief in common-sense arguments suggesting that Lechmere was exactly what he likely was: A husband, father of eleven, working man who got ahead in life by employing a work ethic that is apparent, even through the dry, official records that have survived.

If Lechmere killed Nichols (leaving out entirely the possibility that he was Jack the Ripper, The Toso Killer, etc.) then his behavior simply cannot be rationally explained:

- His staying in Buck's Row rather than simply walking away in the darkness
- His approaching Paul
- Him asking Paul to observe Nichols
- Him going with Paul to find a policeman rather than going in direction from which Paul had come
- Him coming forward of his own accord

It's all literally too long to list here. I'll relate a quick story. As you may have guessed, because of Christer's irrational arguments, I brought myself fully up to speed on Buck's Row, before, after, etc. I studied the actors, their actions, all that. Recently, at a rather sizable gathering of friends I RE-ENACTED the events in Buck's Row, pausing at what I called LECHMERE'S DECISION POINTS. For instance, we were outdoors. I had a friend lie down and play Nichols. I was Lechmere and pretended to do her as Christer tells us he did her. I then had another friend walk 40 yards away, in the dark, and move toward me. How many people, when actually observing that distance lack of detail available to the eye in the darkness, would you imagine guess that our man felt his best course of action was to stop, walk a few feet from the body in the DIRECTION of the man approaching..then to approach that man himself, TOUCH HIM, and ask him to come see the woman? You are correct if you said zero. Further, after listening to their common sense based predictons and then witnessing me acting out what Christer has Lechmere doing after he killed Nichols, what do you think the collective reaction was? If you said, HOWLS OF LAUGHTER, you'd be right on.

[Fisherman]

The only sensible reason for attending the inquest is that he thought he should do his duty (even if the other carman was reluctant) and set the record straight.

There was nothing to be gained if he was the killer, and a hell of a lot to lose, particularly if he didn't want his real name and address coming out publicly because he knew he was likely to kill again sooner rather than later.

Love,

Caz
X

But this is just your preconceived notion, Caz. I think that it would be eminently sensible to attend the inquest if he believed that he would be sought for as the killer if he did not. Therefore, ultimately, he may have reasoned that he stood to gain an escape from the gallows.

One could do more poorly, you have to admit that.

The more I think about it the more sure I become, even ...

[Fisherman]

Fisherman responded by giving me points where there was no circular reasoning on his behalf at least in the way he worded them. But there were actual points in other threads where he was doing some serious circular reasoning.

Circular reasoning is a slippery path many walk on for example by starting with a dubious premise (point A) and coming to a conclusion through speculation that given A, point B is true and since B is true one comes to a second conclusion again by speculating that C is also true proving that point A is true.

Now this an example using a 3 point relation. But it happens more often when one goes through numerous points. The problem is the way one links each point with the others. The final conclusion often turns out to be a pure coincidence and not the result of a valid analytical method. The sad thing about this approach is that the final conclusion could actually be true but must be proven otherwise even if one uses the same points.

Now let's hope Fisherman doesn't tell me again that what I've just said makes no sense to him.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

I wonīt - promise. And I agree with how you describe circular reasoning, just as I am glad that you recognize that the speculations about psychopathy are relevant.

Letīs see if Caz read your post too...?

[Fisherman]

Congratulations, Fish. That would be real evidence, unless the suspect could give a plausible alternative explanation for the blue palm prints.

The trouble is, this observation sticks out like a very sticky, very sore blue thumb from everything else you claimed was not in any way circular.

I'm afraid you can argue until you are sticky and blue in the face that the ripper was most probably a psychopath, but until you can show that Lechmere was either a probable psychopath independently of whether he was the killer or not, or probably the killer independently of whether he was a psychopath or not, you still have two complete unknowns which rely on the truth of one to make your case for the other.

And that is about as circular as it gets in the debating world.

Love,

Caz
X

Take a look at Hercules latest post to you. He understands what circular reasoning is.
In a sense, we are all engaging in a paraphrase of circular reasoning, since we are rehashing the same old arguments over and over and over again...

[Fisherman]

You have a lot of nice things to say about the policeman who endorses your suspect, but not for the one who doesn't?

I bet you do.

And for the record, I asked many moons ago what, precisely, documentation Scobie and Griffiths saw.

I'm still waiting for an answer.

Monty

Itīs strange, but I have waited for some decency the exact same time.

[caz]

caz: I agree with you here, Fish. Don't faint.

But is it not possible that, after considering the situation long and hard before doing the right thing and attending the inquest, this hard-working family man used the name Cross with the intention to mislead the killer?

The killer, reading the inquest reports, would never connect the man who had very possibly interrupted his fiendish deeds with his wife - Mrs. Lechmere and his brood of little Lechmeres. If Lechmere didn't quite trust the police enough to keep his real name out of it for his family's sake, who could blame him? If anyone had gone on to query the use of his long departed stepfather's surname for this one occasion - which was not illegal anyway and about as far as you can get from a hanging offence - such an explanation would have come across as entirely understandable in the circumstances. Just a prudent man, thinking of his nearest and dearest and not particularly keen to let the killer know a Lechmere had nearly buckled him.

Of course it is possible, Caz. Anything that is not impossible is possible. But why would a killer who could read in the papers that Lechmere had heard or seen absolutely nothing go after the carman? Why would the carman fear such a thing?

That's the whole point, Fish. He wouldn't. That was what Lechmere in this scenario was trying to achieve - covering all the bases. By saying he saw and heard nothing (whether he did or not), that might keep himself safe, but if the killer wasn't satisfied, at least he wouldn't know the name of Cross's wife and children.

I donīt think that it is the best suggestion. I would be slightly more prone to accept the suggestion that he did not want to worry his wife - something that has also been suggested.

Fair enough, that's also a good reason for not publicising the Lechmere name when he could use an alternative.

If Lechmere was just a man who was either scared of the killer or a man who wanted to keep his wife from worrying - why is it that Mizen tells us that he spoke of another PC in Bucks Row? Why does Mizen say - as per that Times, I believe - that the carman had said that a woman had been found lying in Bucks Row?
"Had been found lying"? Why not say "I found this woman in Bucks Row"? The first alternative makes it sound as if somebody else did the finding - like another PC.
It is also said that the carman said "You are wanted in Bucks Row".
Wanted? By whom? Same thing here!....

...and so on and so on. Been through all this before, Fish. If you can't or won't consider any of the alternative explanations there is little point in my repeating them ad nauseam.

Love,

Caz
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