Lechmere-Cross bye bye

[Fisherman]

Since the issue about how long the trek from Doveton Street to Bucks Row would have taken, and since it has been questioned that Andy Griffiths and I did it in a normal pace, arriving at 7.07 minutes, it may need to be added how Michael Connor - one of the very first to point a finger at Lechmere - timed it:
Walking time between Doveton Street and the Buck’s Row murder site today is approximately six minutes—it would have been quicker in 1888. Even on the basis of this modern timing, if he left home on that morning about 3.30 then he would have been in Buck’s Row about 3.36.

[GUT]

What name do you think the police would use in their reports, Gut, if they knew his real name was Lechmere...?

Have you got the police reports?

[Fisherman]

Have you got the police reports?

The 19:th of September and the 19:th of October reports (Abberline/Swanson resp Swanson) both have him as Cross only. Why is that, it they knew that his real name was Lechmere?

[GUT]

The 19:th of September and the 19:th of October reports (Abberline/Swanson resp Swanson) both have him as Cross only. Why is that, it they knew that his real name was Lechmere?

So two say Cross.

I read hundreds, maybe thousands of police reports a year.

When a person has multiple names they are generally mentioned in one document, then one name (normally the one he is known by, his legal name or not) is used everywhere else.

Was it that way in 1888, I don't know, but I suspect so.

[Fisherman]

So two say Cross.

I read hundreds, maybe thousands of police reports a year.

When a person has multiple names they are generally mentioned in one document, then one name (normally the one he is known by, his legal name or not) is used everywhere else.

Was it that way in 1888, I don't know, but I suspect so.

The ONLY two we have say Cross. There is no reason at all to think that any other report said Lechmere.

Lechmere was the name he was registered by, the name that he used officially. It was also the only of the two names that offered a possibility to search for him in the registers.
Are you suggesting that the police gave up that possibility, leaving posterity - including their own colleagues - at a loss to identify the man?
Why would he call himself Lechmere when speaking to the school authorities, the census takers, the voting administrators, the church authorities, instead of calling himself Cross there too, if he really did call himself Cross normally?

The desperation that surfaces when it cmes to this matter is astonishing. There is not a iot of evidence that he ever called himself Cross on any other occasion, in everyday life or in official circumstances, and still this idea is being pushed as if it was a very good one.
Amazing.

[MysterySinger]

Probably been said before but for those who have studied Lechmere in depth, is there info on Lechmere's employment status with Pickfords (if that's who it was)? He would have been known by the name Lechmere there, but perhaps he didn't want the authorities to know about it. Cash in hand, not paying tax sort of thing. For sure it seems odd that he used the name Cross but then how many others used aliases for the purposes of avoiding direct identification in the papers, for example? There was a killer on the loose after all.

If Lech wasn't the killer, the murderer escaped by the skin of his teeth. Perhaps he was observing everything from a window of his residency overlooking the murder site.

[Rosella]

Working class people didn't pay income tax in those days so Lechmere wouldn't have been bothered about avoiding it. (Even for the wealthy it was only about 6d in the £. ) Couldn't Jack have escaped up a nearby alleyway? There were several leading into other streets.

[Patrick S]

I think it's interesting that you knew GUT was going to give me these examples 10 minutes before he posted them......

There is only so much to know when it comes to this stuff, Columbo. And we all know it. You don't.

I didn't say anyone got the right spelling, all I said was they were used to unusual names.

Why the hostility?

Columbo

It's not hostility. I just figure, since you called me a "little bitch" a few pages back, and you seem to want to argue every obvious point, that I'd cut you very little slack. So, I'm not inclined to let your absurdities pass uncommented upon.

[Patrick S]

You mean like


Times (London)
Tuesday, 19 March 1889

Diemschitz?

Perfect.

[Patrick S]

The ONLY two we have say Cross. There is no reason at all to think that any other report said Lechmere.

Lechmere was the name he was registered by, the name that he used officially. It was also the only of the two names that offered a possibility to search for him in the registers.
Are you suggesting that the police gave up that possibility, leaving posterity - including their own colleagues - at a loss to identify the man?
Why would he call himself Lechmere when speaking to the school authorities, the census takers, the voting administrators, the church authorities, instead of calling himself Cross there too, if he really did call himself Cross normally?

The desperation that surfaces when it cmes to this matter is astonishing. There is not a iot of evidence that he ever called himself Cross on any other occasion, in everyday life or in official circumstances, and still this idea is being pushed as if it was a very good one.
Amazing.

Okay. Let's take another approach here. For the sake of "Fisherman's" argument, let's concede that Lechmere was up to no good in giving his name as Cross. He intended to deceive and he succeeded. The question is this: Did Lechmere give the name Cross for any of the myriad reasons tht have appeared on this thread, this board, this website (!), or did he give the name Cross because he was - in fact - Jack the Ripper?

So, to be clear, for the sake of this discussion we are going to assume that Lechmere gave the name Cross exclusively to every PC, every coroner, every newspaper man, every official, every person he came into contact with as it related to the Nichols' murder.

Then THIS becomes the question: What else is there to lead one to believe that he gave the name Cross - a legitimate name that we KNOW he used/was known by in the past - because he'd murdered Nichols and wished to obscure his identity?

We have some documentation of his behavior and actions after the murder. He approached Paul, touched his shoulder, asked him to come see. He examined the body with Paul and stated he thought her dead. He went looking for PC to tell they'd found a woman lying in the street. He found one and told him. Robert Paul was with him. He reported to the inquest voluntarily 72 hours later. He had not been compelled to appear. He not been named, identified, described in any way. He showed up and told a pretty non-controversial version of events. No real issues were raised about him, his actions, his demeanor, his role. And we never hear from him again in the annals of Ripperdom.

These are all reasonable actions that lead one to believe that Lechmere likely did not kill Nichols. These simply are not the actions of someone who had just - seconds before meeting Paul - killed a woman. Slashed her throat and disemboweled her. But, the argument here is that Lechmere was able to do all this, that he DID all of this because he was a psychopath. Then that leads us to ask if have so much as a hint or a clue that he was a psychopath?

That's an easy answer. We have nothing. We have no arrest record. We have no incidents of violence. We have remarkably stable employment at Pickfords, over twenty years. This tells us he was a reliable, good employee. The quality of his addresses improved throughout his life. This tells us he cared about his family's situation and quality of life. He was married to the same woman for 50 years. He had 11 children. The children that I've been able to track lived admirable and productive lives. They were professionals, clerks, soldiers, shopkeepers. As far as we can tell, his children were not criminals. As best we can tell, these were respectable people. Notably so. As a pensioner he opened a small shop. He died in his mid-70s and left his wife a tidy sum to see her through, which it apparently did. She lived in the county until she died few years later.

"Fisherman's" argument is always, "IF he killed Nichols and was Jack the Ripper, then we KNOW was a psychopath." By any objective measure this is an absurd contention because we have NO evidence that he KILLED Nichols. None. Yet, we have truckloads of information that tells us this man was no psychopath.

The name issue is interesting. I don't think it's connected to the murders or implicates Lechmere as the Ripper. When you look closely at the man and his life, he makes an terrible "suspect" indeed.

[Columbo]

It's not hostility. I just figure, since you called me a "little bitch" a few pages back, and you seem to want to argue every obvious point, that I'd cut you very little slack. So, I'm not inclined to let your absurdities pass uncommented upon.

You are right that I don't know that much about this theory which is why I'm reading and participating.

But I wouldn't under estimate people.

Continue your barrage on us Patrick, I can take it.

Columb

[Columbo]

So two say Cross.

I read hundreds, maybe thousands of police reports a year.

When a person has multiple names they are generally mentioned in one document, then one name (normally the one he is known by, his legal name or not) is used everywhere else.

Was it that way in 1888, I don't know, but I suspect so.

So how many do you want? Fisherman provided two great examples and you're still not happy with that?

[Patrick S]

You are right that I don't know that much about this theory which is why I'm reading and participating.

But I wouldn't under estimate people.

Continue your barrage on us Patrick, I can take it.

Columb

It's fair to say that you are properly estimated by those on these boards. To quote a great actor from a great movie, "I look forward to your next syllable with great eagerness."

[Columbo]

Perfect.

doesn't mean anything. So what if they spelled the name wrong? The point is they didn't shy away from it and ask if the guy when by something easier to spell.

If Cross said Lechmere, they would've printed it. You're grasping at straws.

[Columbo]

It's fair to say that you are properly estimated by those on these boards. To quote a great actor from a great movie, "I look forward to your next syllable with great eagerness."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You're still not getting it are you? You can't disprove Fisherman's theory and it's eating you up. Funny thing is that your approach is completely backwards.

Done with Choo!

Columbo