Lechmere-Cross bye bye

[Patrick S]

Pierre: "Common sense" is useless when it comes to research.

Then research is not what we should use.

It won´t get you to knowing who Jack the Ripper was.

Tell you what: your "science" will DEFINITELY not catch our man. There was never a serialist caught throughout history using such a model. Sound police work, grounded in anomalies and suspicious behaviour attaching to a suspect is what does the work.
I can´t remember the men who caught sutcliffe, Ridgway, Gacy etcetera engaging in academic discussions. So let´s not be ridiculous here. Raed the memoirs of those policemen and see what worked for them!


Oh, dear, Christer! Really? I suppose this why you are so insistent with respect to this "blood evidence". Does 'sound police work' include creating "blood evidence" based on second hand accounts published in 127 year old tabloids? And...you DO understand the difference between researching events that occured more than century ago and tracking a killer, at-large, in the age of fingerprints, DNA, etc.

Which "common sense" do you use? A 19th or 20th century model? Whose "common sense" is it?

Great point! Wait....what? There is a common sense model? Can I see it? Is it a secret? Did you invent it?

Use your model and find out.

Now it has become perfectly clear to me that you don´t even know what you are doing. By the word "know" I mean using a scientific perspective and method.

AH! Insults! "You are incompetent, Pierre! I'm CHRISTER! He of the internationally sent documentary! HOW DARE YOU questions me!!?! If you are such an intellectual titan, why not debate me in public?
You do that, Pierre. And shame on the killer if he does not cooperate!

Research has had a lot to say in this matter. I recommend that you use some book on scientific methods within the field of history.

I recommend you begin using common courtesy because this idiotic theory of yours has collapsed under the slightest scrutiny.

Thank you; No thank you, to be more exact.

What a sweetheart you are, Christer! You are a true Christian gentleman in the mold of good, tender, honest, true Jonas Mizen..the hero of your tale. With such manners on display for all to see, it's understandable how you'd be outraged and reduced to tears when treated similarly.

[Hercule Poirot]

Some of this is a simple narrative problem. When presenting a thesis, it is presented as fact. The experiment or research will then prove or disprove. Many people on these boards present their theories as facts because they are approaching it as a thesis. It's how the scientific community presents theories, and anyone who got it drilled in their head in high school is prone to do the same thing even outside a scientific forum. I've done it. I've not done it. I've even done it for a month or so and then switched to not doing it if I lose faith in the idea.

It also saves time without having to write out all the "I think" or "maybe if" kind of qualifiers. Fisherman has stated the evidence and questions he has. It's not enough to prove or disprove, so it remains a thesis. Thus it is perfectly acceptable for the thesis to be presented as a statement rather than a question. It's just one way people have of presenting theories on here. And it's an acceptable one.

I've been involved in many thesis reviews and the words used almost all the time are related to expressions such as submitting a proposition, a premise and it's clearly done at the beginning. Everything after defines, explains, tries to proove the statement to be true. Opinions, interpretations of evidence or statistical data, for example, are not automatically accepted as facts, they are part of the evidence and given in order to better supprt a proposition. The conclusion may turn out to be the expression of a fact and the initial statement may deem to be true depending on the validity of the evidence and the arguments submitted.

Now, I'm not challanging what Fisherman or any other may have said, but noticed the frequent confusion caused what you consider to be 'a simple narrative problem'. The methodology used by many is probably the most serious problem we observe and results in not having the proposition proven but simply becoming an educated guess!

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

[Hercule Poirot]

"Common sense" is useless when it comes to research.

Regards Pierre

I usually like what you have said in many threads but regarding what you just wrote about commun sense being useless, I must humbly disagree.

Pure science and historical science as well as social science in many cases have different ways of handling data although the 'validity' goal remains the same. May I quote you a source (wikipedia) you should read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

More precisely, this is what 2 internationaly know historian-experts, Bernheim (still published to this day) and Langlois & Seignobos, have to say about commun sense : When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

I must admit that common sense may apply to certain arguments but does not superseed the validity standard a full proof must rely upon when it's possible.

Respectfully yours,
Hercule Poirot

[Hercule Poirot]

I should have added that even if common sense is often considered valid in terms of historical research, in a criminal case, it doesn't mean it will add weight to the validity of any argument submited as part of a 'beyond reasonable doubt' proof. Quite to the contrary, it will most of the time trigger a reasonable doubt often resulting in a not guilty verdict if no other valid arguments are submitted.
Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

[Errata]

Now, I'm not challanging what Fisherman or any other may have said, but noticed the frequent confusion caused what you consider to be 'a simple narrative problem'. The methodology used by many is probably the most serious problem we observe and results in not having the proposition proven but simply becoming an educated guess!

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

And I agree. But it's a short hand we all use. We state theory as absolute. My point is that accusing someone of lying or distorting the facts because they use a common shorthand in communicating a theory is unnecessary. There are any number of people I think have deluded themselves into thinking theory is fact because of how they present themselves. But I don't think it is fact because I have critical thinking skills. I can make the distinction, and I think we all can. It's a message board. Not a court of law. Worst case scenario we make ourselves look foolish by using too few qualifiers in our statements. But I don't think anyone's certainty has tainted the fact of this case. We are too jaded to simply accept someone's word.

A lot of these statements ARE educated guesses, though a few a facts in the minds of their authors. It's okay that they are educated guesses. It's even okay that their authors think they are facts. This is not an academic board. And we don't have a ton of facts just waiting out there to support theories. Some of us build entire cases on layered theories, and that's okay too. It's all guesses. It's all theory. I would bet my house that Jack was not mentally ill, and I don't even have a suspect. I am certain, but I have no evidence. No proof. I state it as fact that Jack was not a schizophrenic. Should I do that? No, and were I to write a paper I would be very careful about my language. But this is a message board, and I'm arguing, and I state it as fact. Defend it as fact. And I think that's okay. Because someone might respond with a joke about a turtle getting mugged by a snail, reminding me that this is message board, and a pretty casual one.

[Pierre]

I usually like what you have said in many threads but regarding what you just wrote about commun sense being useless, I must humbly disagree.

Pure science and historical science as well as social science in many cases have different ways of handling data although the 'validity' goal remains the same. May I quote you a source (wikipedia) you should read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method

More precisely, this is what 2 internationaly know historian-experts, Bernheim (still published to this day) and Langlois & Seignobos, have to say about commun sense : When two sources disagree and there is no other means of evaluation, then historians take the source which seems to accord best with common sense.

I must admit that common sense may apply to certain arguments but does not superseed the validity standard a full proof must rely upon when it's possible.

Respectfully yours,
Hercule Poirot

Hi,

Wikipedia is no good source for the question of validity. There are a number of types of validity that one has to consider and good historians and social scientists never use "common sense" if there are other means of evaluating a source or data material. Usually there are a lot of other means; I would say in 99 percent of all cases. You can read about validity and reliability here:

Research Methods in the Social Sciences Eighth Edition Edition
by Chava Frankfort-Nachmias (Author), David Nachmias (Author), Jack DeWaard (Author)

A lot of people believe they can write history although they have no academic training. And old ideas of what history could be prevail in some parts of the field. It is a bit like calling Plato a philosopher even though he never tended a university. Sloppy definitions lead to sloppy thinking. People think writing "history" is easy although it is extremely advanced. And because they think so, we have all sorts strange writings about the Whitechapel murders.

And please don´t feel any obligation to express yourself "humbly" when you write to me, I am no better than anyone else. I just try to follow scientific rules and achieve more than what my own bias or common sense would lead me to.

Really, I would very much like to get away from this case but I think I have found the Whitechapel killer and the dismemberment murderer (in the same person) so I can´t. Not until I am able to prove myself wrong.

Respectfully yours, Pierre

[Pierre]

Hi,

Wikipedia is no good source for the question of validity. There are a number of types of validity that one has to consider and good historians and social scientists never use "common sense" if there are other means of evaluating a source or data material. Usually there are a lot of other means; I would say in 99 percent of all cases. You can read about validity and reliability here:

Research Methods in the Social Sciences Eighth Edition Edition
by Chava Frankfort-Nachmias (Author), David Nachmias (Author), Jack DeWaard (Author)

A lot of people believe they can write history although they have no academic training. And old ideas of what history could be prevail in some parts of the field. It is a bit like calling Plato a philosopher even though he never tended a university. Sloppy definitions lead to sloppy thinking. People think writing "history" is easy although it is extremely advanced. And because they think so, we have all sorts strange writings about the Whitechapel murders.

And please don´t feel any obligation to express yourself "humbly" when you write to me, I am no better than anyone else. I just try to follow scientific rules and achieve more than what my own bias or common sense would lead me to.

Really, I would very much like to get away from this case but I think I have found the Whitechapel killer and the dismemberment murderer (in the same person) so I can´t. Not until I am able to prove myself wrong.

Respectfully yours, Pierre

Quoting myself now: "I just try to follow scientific rules and achieve more than what my own bias or common sense would lead me to."

If I had followed my own bias or common sense I would have rejected some of the sources as impossible sources. I would have thought: "This isn´t him, it can´t be". My common sense would tell me this.

And then I would not have found the other data sources.

I have data that connects him to the murders. Why do I have this data? Why are independent sources pointing to the same person?

Some of the data have low validity, some medium high and some have high validity. Those who have low validity still have higher validity than most of the data used by ripperologists to argue for a certain killer.

The sources explain why he did it and how. They answer questions that people have been asking for a long time. And sources that people haven´t understood before become easy to understand.

I thought this case was an unsolvable one. I often still think it is. That´s my researcher bias. Why should my research be better than everybody elses? Why should someone like me who has no interest in the case be able to solve it?

No. I don´t believe that. I must be wrong.

Pierre

[Hercule Poirot]

Just to make things clear. When I gave the Wikipedia link, it was for you and others to see what international experts had to say about common sense and not those who wrote the actual page. I gave you Ernst Bernheim who wrote Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, a classic. I could also have given you Gilbert J. Garraghan's A Guide to Historical Method who expressed the same opinion, the point being offering valid sources and not simply a Wikipedia link. Of course, other authors may have a diffferent opinion.

I also said that common sense is considered to be valid in certain cases but validity remains the basic standard.

Cheers
Hercule Poirot

[harry]

Common sense. Cross lies about his identity.He commits perjury at the inquest.He must have,if we are to believe using the name Cross was a lie.
Why would he do that?what could be gained by doing it? He gives his correct home address and place of work.Common sense?

[Hercule Poirot]

Common sense. Cross lies about his identity.He commits perjury at the inquest.He must have,if we are to believe using the name Cross was a lie.
Why would he do that?what could be gained by doing it? He gives his correct home address and place of work.Common sense?

Probably not the best example of common sense.

[caz]

Catching up because I was on my hols in late October:

Yes, everyone would originally have thought that Neil was the officer Robert Paul spoke of. That is why he was asked whether two men directed him to the body or not; Pauls story involved him and Lechmere finding the body and telling a PC about it, and the natural thing to assume would be that this PC was Neil, who claimed to have found the body.

However, if the police had accepted Robert Pauls story, as written in Lloyds Weekly on the 2:nd, they would not let Neil go on claiming that he was the finder.They would have known that the carmen were. And that is not what is says in the article. It instead claims that the body was found at 3.45 and that the finder was Neil.

And the wording "It is not true ..." shiuld have been followed by an explanation about what REALLY happened if the police had put faith in Robert Pauls story.

It can be added that Robert Paul did not come forward to the police - he was interviewed by the press only, and when the police finally realized that he was a material witness, they set out to look for him, AFTER the second inquest day.
Up til that stage, he had been of no interest, but after Lechmeres testimony,he was upgraded and sought after.

When Neil was asked if two men had directed him to the body he said it wasn’t true and maintained his position as sole finder. He also described flashing his lantern and being answered by ‘Smizen’ and Thain. Had Neil seen two men and sent them for a policeman, he’d have said so at that point. Maybe Mizen knew nothing about Neil’s account, but after Paul’s press interview appeared he would quickly have been identified as a PC who was directed by two men to the body, and he’d have been asked for his side of Paul’s story. Until the police had Crossmere’s version, the assumption would be that Paul had alerted Mizen and the various discrepancies were therefore down to them alone, and did not involve the ‘other man’, who had gone on his way. Paul would surely have been sought on those grounds alone, whether or not Crossmere had shown up. When he did, he confirmed Paul’s claims that he [Crossmere] had found the woman first and they went off to find the nearest policeman [because they didn’t see one at the scene].

Without Lechmere or Paul coming forward voluntarily, it would have been a toss-up whose account to believe out of Neil’s, Mizen’s and Paul’s in the newspaper. Yet only the absent and less than reliable witness, Paul, was claiming that anyone other than a policeman had found the body first! Both PCs were giving the distinct impression that Neil found it first, while Mizen had simply responded to his signal and/or message for assistance. Even if Paul’s word was accepted over that of two police officers (which would be rather perverse), he was claiming the woman was so cold she must have been dead a long while before she was found, effectively putting the unidentified Crossmere in the clear even as he was introducing him to the story.

Assuming Crossmere read Paul’s account, he could bank on Mizen and Neil busily dissing it behind the scenes, and would have absolutely nothing to fear and everything to gain from staying well out of it, if he killed Nichols and wanted to do it again. Mizen thought it was Paul who spoke to him. If and when Paul was tracked down, and Mizen realised he had lied to him about which man was which, Paul would have been branded the only liar in the equation, with nothing but his word for it that the other man had got to the body before he did.

When "Cross" was brought in to the inquest room, Mizen identified him as the man he had spoken to.

Do we know this for a fact, Christer? Mizen took the stand before Cross, so if Mizen knew him by that name when giving his evidence, it was because Cross had already identified himself to the authorities as the man who found Nichols and reported it to Mizen. Mizen may not have needed to see and recognise him to learn that his informant’s name was Cross and not Paul. It seems highly doubtful that two men wearing similar attire, one having done the woman in and deliberately trying to hoodwink Mizen and remain anonymous, the other no fan of the police and late for work, would have given him much chance to register their features and commit them to memory, even allowing he showed the slightest interest in doing so.

As for Lechmer suggesting "there was a man running down Bucks Row", what was he supposed to do if it surfaced that Mizen was at the junction and said "No, that is a lie. There was absolutely nobody"?
That would be game up, Caz. He may not have desired that. he may therefore have been the more clever of the two of you in this department.

What was he supposed to do, Christer? Are you having a laugh? He was supposed to do much the same as you propose he did when it surfaced that he hadn’t been sent by a policeman to fetch Mizen. When he denied telling Mizen this, did Mizen say “No, that is a lie. He absolutely did tell me that, which was also a lie”? And was the game up? No it wasn’t, because it was Lechmere’s word against Mizen’s, and nobody, including Mizen, seemed to want to make a fuss about it. At most it was considered an innocent misunderstanding.

If Lechmere was such a clever clogs he’d have found it a doddle to stick with a claim to have seen or heard someone running away. Far from being able to prove him a liar, Mizen’s own powers of observation would have been questioned.

2. There is virtually no chance that Lechmere would have concocted as complex and convoluted a lie as the one with the extra PC. He would have known that Lechmere and Paul would both gainsay him, and then the cat would be out of the bag. In all probability, it would cost him his job.
More pertinently, he never even needed to invent an extra PC. It would be counterproductive. It would put him in a situation where he had a duty to get to Bucks Row double quick to answer the colleagues call, and the criticism against the Mizen scam are built on how Mizen would have felt a need to make excuses for his suggested tardiness.
Why on earth would he admit to knowing that another PC had requested his help? He could just say "I didn´t make haste since I had been told that there was a drunken woman in Bucks Row, and that would not have been a very pressing errand". Problem solved. In accordance with what he knew the carmen would say.

Firstly, I assume you meant to write:

‘2. There is virtually no chance that Mizen would have concocted… etc.’

But the problem here is that both Lechmere and Paul, and PC Neil to boot, did gainsay him about a policeman sending the men to get him, and what’s more, Lechmere’s denial was accepted. No cats out of any bags; no jobs lost. Whether Mizen was told a colleague wanted him, or he imagined/assumed/invented it, it would still have been his duty, according to you, to get to Buck’s Row ‘double quick’, so why indeed did he either ‘admit’ or claim that another PC had requested his help? We know he did just that, when he could have solved the problem of his less than hasty response in the way you describe. His word against Lechmere’s, which was exactly what happened in the end, because Lechmere’s denial let him off the whole ‘colleague in need’ hook!

3. Thain tells us that he was not supposed to leave his beat unless called. The same would have applied to Mizen. Therefore, it makes sense to accept that he WAS called - by Lechmere, who lied about the other PC.

So if Mizen was meant to respond immediately to a colleague’s specific request, but not leave his beat without one, that might explain why he said Lechmere passed on such a request, even though it made his slow response look bad. It may have seemed to him the lesser of two evils.

Love,

Caz
X

[drstrange169]

There is a reason what your writing seems logical Caz;-)

Alas, no matter how many times you write down the simple facts, there are those that will come up with convoluted explanations to justify a cherished theory.

All the "Mizen Scam" evidence points one way, but like the Xmere name thing, it's all they've really got to argue with so they are going to desperately keep pushing it, no matter how many sensible things you write.

[Clark]

....Was described by a QC as a prima faciae case that suggested that he was the killer - no scientific significance....

I quite liked the TV program on Lechmere, but I'd note here that there is a reason that our judicial system is adversarial in nature. We lack Lechmere's side of the story, and we lack any record of what the police might have done in deciding to dismiss Lechmere as a suspect, or perhaps not even consider him as such.

Despite what the QC said on TV, there isn't a prosecutor on the planet who would file a case against a suspect without at least hearing his side of the story.

[GUT]

I quite liked the TV program on Lechmere, but I'd note here that there is a reason that our judicial system is adversarial in nature. We lack Lechmere's side of the story, and we lack any record of what the police might have done in deciding to dismiss Lechmere as a suspect, or perhaps not even consider him as such.

Despite what the QC said on TV, there isn't a prosecutor on the planet who would file a case against a suspect without at least hearing his side of the story.

And if he is basing it on the footage in the documentary, like Cross being crouched over Polly when Paul arrives, well his opinion becomes worthless.

[SuspectZero]

And if he is basing it on the footage in the documentary, like Cross being crouched over Polly when Paul arrives, well his opinion becomes worthless.

From what I've read, the police believed she was murdered elsewhere and deposited there. If it was Lechmere, he would have had to get past the PC on Brady Street and drop her in Bucks, Row to pull this off.
Was that on his route?